


Rich and Eddie Make A Porno

by jorgus



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Anal Fingering, Angst Lite, Blow Jobs, Cold Weather, Eddie Kaspbrak's Shorts, Eventual Smut, Fantasizing, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hand Jobs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Porn with Feelings, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Tension, Shower Sex, Slow Burn, Smut, Zack and Miri Make a Porno AU, and they were roommates!, i just really wanna reiterate: pining, mostly feelings and plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21868483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jorgus/pseuds/jorgus
Summary: Longtime roommates Richie and Eddie are down on their luck, facing eviction right before the holidays.To save their apartment, Richie devises the brilliant plan to produce a homemade porn flick and rake in the cash... but he fails to consider how asking his unrequited crush to star might complicate their relationship.AKA two trashy 30-somethings think it's a good idea to try to solve their problems by making a goofy porno, get their friends to help them, and catch feelings along the way.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 237
Kudos: 1128





	1. today's morning commute

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i’ve never published a fic before, but i was so consumed by reddie in this situation that i took the plunge. i stole a lot of beats from zack and miri, though it does diverge. set vaguely in the mid 2000's, the boys are in their 30's.
> 
> fyi for a story about a porno, there's a lot of non-pornographic content and plenty of UST in the early chapters... *laughs* but please hang in there with me!
> 
> OK! let’s wish them luck! they’ll need it!

A metallic groan reverberated through the pipes, the echoes so gutturally disjointed that they shook the thin apartment walls and jolted Richie awake. It couldn’t have been past 7:00 if the crisp morning air was anything to go by, the chill that seeped through the openings in his blankets making him shiver. Slamming his eyes shut did nothing in coaxing sleep back, and he felt his dreams fading out of memory already. 

Distantly, from somewhere down the hall near the restroom, Richie heard his name being shouted.

It was no way to wake up from an otherwise pleasant sleep so Richie thought to punish the perpetrator by taking his time to respond. He shuffled down the hall past the bathroom and blearily tugged out the last two freezer burned Eggos, lazily slamming them into the toaster. 

Another desperate plea drifted from the bathroom, now a bit more stressed, and Richie finally called back innocently, “Eddie?” 

“Richie! Richie!!”

Spending a minute to retrieve his toasted waffle and get a bite in before leaving it stranded on the counter, Richie knocked on the bathroom door. He mumbled gleefully through his munching, “Hey, so the plunger is still being used to prop up the fire escape outside. If you wanna unclog the toilet, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to bite the bullet and get your whole hand up there.” 

“RICHIE—!”

“If you just focus on wiggling it around, you won’t notice having to touch your own-“

“ _The toilet isn’t clogged,_ Rich, can you just - AGH, get _in_ here?! And close your eyes.”

Richie poked his head through the door, the steam fogging his glasses just as quickly as the potent, telltale scent of Eddie’s stupid Old Spice body wash warmed his cheeks. “My eyes are closed,” he lied.

“Did the water turn off through the house? Did you get last month’s bill?” 

“No, it was your turn.”

Eddie spat a string of curses. His head poked out of the shower, clutching the curtain like a protective blanket. Rivulets of soapy water flattened his dark hair to his forehead and he slicked it back angrily. He looked like a furious wet dog, and Richie would have grinned if he wasn’t so distracted by the way the residual soap pooled over his friend’s wet collarbone. 

“ _Great_ , I’ve got a final in forty minutes and shampoo is _caked_ onto my skull - if I leave this in it’s going to dry out my scalp and my dandruff will flare up and it’s not like the cold weather is helping with—"

Richie lifted up the porcelain back of the toilet, retrieving a handful of water from the tank with cupped hands and stalking towards the shower, much to Eddies chagrin. He recoiled, gripping the shower curtain for dear life.

“What are you doing?!”

“Helping you finish your shower, Eds! Because I’m a great friend.”

“Step _away,_ you are _not_ pouring toilet water onto my head.”

“It’s totally sanitary dude, everybody knows that. You could drink it if you wanted, see?” Richie mimed taking a sip. 

Eddie flailed through the shower curtain as his roommate tried to dump the handful of water onto him. “That’s disgusting!! It might not be dirty to _you_ but it’s still - oh, god, ugh I’m gonna wretch if you _get that on me!!_ ” His voice pitched as Richie managed to slosh the cold water onto Eddie’s naked chest after a less-than-graceful dodge, and he disappeared behind the fabric following another trail of expletives. 

“Richie! So not funny, asshole! Get out!”

So he did. Leaving Eddie to figure out how to manage his shampoo problem, Richie hiked downstairs to start scraping ice off the front of their run-down little Volvo.

As with every winter, Derry was painted with frost, the crisp fogginess of the morning barely admirable against the bleak circumstances of overdue bills and impending rent. Grey snow lined the pavement where wet, half-melted dirt had begun to pool, and Richie shoveled it away from the car’s tires with his boot. The engine sputtered worrisomely, but after a few tries it hummed to life so Richie blasted the heat.

They kept an old, hefty spatula in the backseat (the one that a teenaged Eddie had partially melted the time he shoved it into a bonfire to fish out Richie’s retainer, which he’d regrettably spit out to try and get a laugh) that had proven itself the best tool for scuffing off layers of morning ice on days like these.

 _For everything we aren’t, at least we’re resourceful_ , Richie thought fondly, and scrubbed at the windshield with the fortified spatula until his arm grew sore. 

He and Eddie had lived together consistently for eight years now, even when Eddie was in a serious(ly wretched) relationship. It was an easy thing: childhood best friends, both equally miserable, finding their way into a comfortable routine after all their perpetual failures in life. It had been a struggle to make do - but they always did, somehow. Eddie equated it to his own few-and-in-between successes, discrediting Richie as being no help at all.

But even when he didn’t say it, Richie saw Eddie’s gratefulness in infinite moments across their time together. He saw it in the meals Eddie invited him to share every night; the hot saltwater drink he’d be forced to snort when he had strep throat; the warm brush of knee against knee after sleepless nights talking Eddie through another panic attack; the comfortable way that small form slouched against his shoulder the night their radio broke and Richie sang them shoddy covers on his guitar instead.

At the end of the day, they were an odd couple in their mid-thirties with nowhere to go but down. And if that was how it was going to be, they were content to go down together.

“Oh—FUCK!” 

His boot slid suddenly on a sheen of ice and sidewalk met tailbone as he tumbled down with a loud thud. Trying to stagger to his feet barely helped as he repeatedly slipped around like a clown doing slapstick. He finally managed to steady himself enough to give the car a vengeful kick. 

“Serves you right,” Eddie grumbled from behind him. He scowled at Richie as he waddled over, layered in two thick jackets with a backpack strewn over his shoulder, but there was no venom in his concerned gaze - and it wasn’t just because of the woobifying nature of his hilariously red pompom beanie. 

“I’m fine,” Richie answered the unspoken worry. Eddie didn’t seem to believe him because his scowl darkened and he took one solid look at the seat of Richie’s frost-caked sweatpants. The taller man rubbed his snowy backside and did a little twist, trying to show off just how okay he was. His spine betrayed him with a loud pop.

“You look stupid,” Eddie sniffed.

“An inspired insult, _Santa Baby_ ,” Richie flicked the pompom. They tussled for a moment, the kind of stop-hitting-yourself, hand-to-hand combat that a pair of grade schoolers might perform. The instigator won, because Eddie was now being made to hit himself, but the fight ended when all 6 feet 2 inches of Richie came slipping down to the ice once again. This time Eddie had no sympathy and gave a snide little, “Ha!” then slammed the car door closed and veered out of the parking spot without another word.

Still laying on the ground, Richie shouted after him, “Try not to get dandruff all over your test!” 

The apartment was comforting after being outside in the frigid air, but Richie barely cared to slog off his jacket or the snow from his boots as he lumbered into the living room. A buzzing caught his attention and he found his phone buried between the couch cushions where he had passed out last night after their _Gilmore Girls_ marathon. He flipped it open.

 **Spaghetti:** Thanks for literally freezing your ass off to go defrost the car for me  
**Spaghetti:** You didn’t have to  
**Richie:** dont you know that texting while driving is the cause of 85% of ALL deaths in the united states alone?? and 92% of all accidents????!   
**Spaghetti:** It’s 10%. And I’m at a stoplight   
**Spaghetti:** But okay, thanks instead for giving me an excuse to stop talking to you   
**Richie:** lol no prob man good luck on your exam. channel ur inner rory

He tossed the old Motorola aside and popped his half-eaten waffle from earlier back into the toaster, when suddenly, his phone buzzed again… then again - and one more time before it even had a chance to slow down.

Richie scanned the desperate text messages and ripped his waffle from out of the toaster, shoving it into his mouth as he jetted out the door.

\--------------------------

“No, I don’t know— the car just hiccuped and stalled there after I texted you. Ughhhh this is _so_ not the time for more car repairs…. Did you make sure to check if the trunk light was off last night when you got back? I know after the fender it’s been like permanently lodged open, but you _know_ the battery drains if you don’t push down on that button in the—“ 

Eddie’s voice was loud in Richie’s ear, blabbering on over the whirling click of their current ride: a rusty old bicycle. They’d bought it from a thrift store when they were young, but both roommates rarely touched it anymore and it had only gotten worse in its disuse.

Still - it was functional, and now they were two grown men stacked together on the bicycle like children, Richie’s long-legged pedaling careening them dangerously past snow piles while Eddie clung to the sides of his coat from the back. It was not the most graceful solution, Richie could acknowledge that, but after the Volvo decided to break down in the middle of the road, cycling was the most reliable way to get Eddie to class on time and Richie back home afterwards.

To quiet the senseless prattle of the nervous wreck behind him, Richie bounced them over a big crack in the sidewalk and received a smack against his arm for interrupting.

“Not while I’m dri— _NOT WHILE I’M DRIVING,_ you lunatic!” Richie waved Eddie’s hand away, trying to blindly return the smack. 

“Maybe you can try not giving me vertigo with your steering?”

“Oh, you mean this like?” he swerved again for effect, but the comedy was lost when the old asphalt road became bumpy and jostled them along aggressively. Eddie’s hands wrapped around Richie’s waist in a tight grip.

Distant teenage memories of insisting it was _his_ turn to bike their group of friends around, if not only so Eddie might cling to him like this, came rushing back and settled heavily in Richie’s heart. He pedaled faster to sooner end the torture of having Eddie’s chest pressed closely against his back every time they veered a little too close towards traffic. 

“Ughhh I’m so gonna be late,” Eddie muttered to himself. The whisper danced over the back of Richie’s neck and he immediately braked the bike, lurching the brunette into his backside with a breathy “OOF! What the hell, Richie?!”

After swinging his gangly limbs off the frame, Richie pushed the bike handles into Eddie’s hands, receiving an incredulous look.

“Two of us on this is slowing you down. Take it and pass your class.”

Eddie looked indignant. “I— what? That’s like a mile at least, I’m not letting you walk home in this weather, it’s fine, just keep cycling, you’ve got the long legs anyway—“

“Time arguing is better spent biking. It’s…” he glanced at his watch, “...almost 7:45 so just jet, okay? These long legs will get me home easy.”

Richie shuffled away before there could be a retort and prayed that if the flush on his cheeks was noticeable, Eddie would think it was just the cold. The sound of the old bike clicking into the distance signaled that he could finally release the breath he’d been holding, and Richie rubbed his face exhaustedly.

A morning with Eddie was never dull.

He repeated to himself (as he always did when his heart fluttered from thoughts of his friend) that he was definitely, happily, _perfectly_ content just being Eddie’s roommate, and would do anything to maintain their comfortable routine.

He spent the walk home mulling over half-baked plans to get some quick cash, save their asses before rent was due, and keep things just the way they were.


	2. prove them right

_“Shh!”_

The shrill hiss came from the 20-something year old glaring daggers at Eddie. He’d been tapping his foot so absentmindedly that he hadn’t noticed how loud it echoed around the classroom and, despite being polite enough to stop, he still returned the glare with equal ferocity.

Eddie was never bothered by the isolation of being the oldest student in class. While he was occasionally dwarfed by someone in their 50’s, he ultimately had forced himself to stop feeling bad about it after frequently being the angry old guy who sat in the front row. He wasn’t here to make friends - he was here to get a degree and get successful and get him and Richie out of Derry once and for all; that was all that mattered.

Sure, it was taking maybe six years longer and a few more trajectory changes than expected, but he was certain that in the next two years he’d make it happen.

He scribbled through his test for the next hour, unable to resist a few intentionally dramatic tap-tap-taps of his pencil to win some angry glares from his desk neighbor.

The adrenaline from the morning’s bad luck had been the fuel to get him to class before doors closed but now that it was evening, Eddie was too fearful to try and navigate the bike across icy streets like Richie did, instead walking briskly to the pace of the clicking wheels beside him. 

**Eddie Kaspbrak:** Hey, just got out of class.   
**Eddie Kaspbrak:** I’m walking back right now, did you get home okay?

He walked another block to no reply, got bored waiting at the crosswalk, and sent another message to his roommate.

 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** How’s your ass feeling?

It was meant a jab about that morning’s antics, but he felt a little sheepish in rereading the phrasing, so he added,

 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** I hope bad

Somehow that didn’t make things better, but he gave up on devising a clever way to change the subject when Richie ignored him anyway.

\-------------------

The lock on the apartment was undone and as Eddie quietly opened the door he was met with total darkness and a frigid draft. This was uncharacteristic; usually on his days off, Richie would be home with the next disc of whatever TV show they’d rented off Netflix shoved into the DVD player and ready to go.

“...Hello…?” Eddie nervously stepped into the apartment, holding his breath while he grabbed the bat they kept near the refrigerator. A shadow rose up from behind the couch, startling him enough that he yelped and took a blind swing.

“Jesus!! It’s me, Eds!” Richie barely dodged, ducking back behind the couch like he was actually being targeted.

“Why the fuck are you sitting in the dark all alone?”

“It’s not my fault! Well, kind of. No… no, it is our fault,” he sighed. The guy looked absolutely miserable; he was all wrapped up in a huge plaid blanket over his bulky coat, his nose red and a little runny. “Our power got turned off while you were gone.”

“Oh, so you couldn’t charge your phone? That’s why you didn’t text me back.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about? Priorities, man. We’re fucked, dude, this _sucks_ ,” Richie gestured broadly with an exaggerated sniff. Eddie grimaced then passed him a napkin from the kitchen so he could blow his nose. “Rent is due in like two weeks, I’m flat broke and I’m not expecting any big tips from the bar because nobody even wants to go out in weather like this. We gotta make some money and quick, Eds, we’re gonna get evicted…”

Richie wasn’t even trying to joke around about it, a telltale sign that he was truly stressed. When that little wrinkle formed between his expressive brows, Eddie knew they needed to unwind ASAP. He grabbed Richie’s scarf and tugged him towards the door.

“Well, you’re already dressed for a night on the town. What do you say to drowning our sorrows in a drink?” 

\-------------------

For the first time that day they shed their coats, the cozy temperature of the corner pub a warm relief to the duo’s freezing afternoon. They had just enough pocket change for beer, both so stressed from being in dire straits that neither hesitated to immediately dish out. Getting drunk in lieu of thinking about the lack of utilities at home was far more appealing.

“I feel like I’ve worked at every single place in this horrible town and none of them are gonna wanna hire me back,” Richie complained over the noisy drawl of the few loud drunks nearby.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a trashmouth you wouldn’t get serially fired,” sighed Eddie. He didn’t mean to rub it in, but Richie seemed to agree with a dry laugh. “Look, isn’t there _any_ way you could try to drive out of town and see if there’s any movies being made that you could be a production assistant for in, I dunno, Portland, or something?”

“Oh yeah - drive out two hours in our car that broke down this morning? We don’t even have enough money to tow it. Fuck, Eds, they don’t _make movies in Maine_ , why don’t you buy me a ticket to LA with your fucking business degree or whatever.”

“Degree _in progress_ ,” he corrected, rubbing his forehead like he was getting a headache. He could tell they were both feeling bitter because they were starting to prod at each other’s sore spots; it wasn’t like Eddie didn’t feel ashamed of the three different degrees he’d had ‘in progress’ that had never come to fruition over the last few years. When things got too overwhelming, he switched gears and started over, always excelling at the start, always floundering terribly at the end. Even so, he reminded himself that he would’ve met another failure if Richie hadn’t done everything he could to get him to his final on time this morning, so he tried to maintain patience and ignore the dig.

“All right well, cute as you look in that stupid apron, your barista job isn’t gonna get us out of debt any faster than my shitty comedies are gonna make us billionaires.”

They both took a big gulp of their beers and sighed at the same time, to which Richie muttered, “Jinx” and Eddie bought him a second glass for it.

“Man, remember at our highschool reunion a couple years back, when that asshole Kyle McDermott called me a fag and said he’d been waiting for me to make a movie just so he could see what a trainwreck it was?” Richie interrupted their sulking with a snort. “Why did we even _go_ to that? We knew it wasn’t gonna be fun.”

“It was kind of fun. We got to see what’s-her-name try to make out with Ben after seeing how handsome he got.”

“Man, everyone was out to kiss him that night. Her name was Allison. You know she tried to make out with me too?”

“Oh, really? Did you?”

“ _No_ , she’d just made out with Ben and got rejected, I’m nobody’s sloppy seconds. But I _did_ hook up with this really hot girl, what was her name...” Richie furrowed his brow, and then gestured vaguely to try and remind Eddie, “Really hot, little bit older… what was it… you know her, you guys were close…”

“Uhh,” Eddie squinted. He couldn’t recall Richie slipping off with anybody that night, only hazy memories of playing drinking games with him and Mike at their little table in the corner and the feeling of their bodies bumping together in a tipsy group dance when _Closing Time_ was blasted through the gymnasium. And then, he was absolutely certain, Richie had taken him home.

“Best lay I ever had. Sandy blonde hair... honkin’ tits,” Richie went on, gesturing more obscenely now. “Married… she had a son, he’s this angry little dweeb with dark hair and--”

“Oh - shut the fuck up!!” Eddie rolled his eyes, ignoring Richie’s cackling. He spat back, “It’s honestly incredible that for all the nasty stuff you say, you haven’t just made a porno. “

“I did, man, didn’t Mrs. K ever tell you she was a star?”

“Ughhh! Please stop bringing my dead mother into this!” he took a huge swig of his beer and added, “They just wanted to see us ‘homos’ crash and burn.”

Richie laughed again. Eddie didn’t really get it, but somehow reflecting on their shitty old bullies was managing to cheer him up. 

“Well, we kinda did crash and burn,” he chuckled. “But if you really wanted to upset them, all you really had to do was marry your ex and everyone would’ve been soooo bummed to find out you were actually straight all along. Yeah, they’d have been real disappointed then.” He took a sip of his drink.

“Nothing we could do now would impress them. Literally nothing.” 

“There's _no_ universe where I’d be worried about impressing everyone who made our lives hell. But... maybe that lack of driving spite is why we are where we are.” Richie shrugged when Eddie grunted in agreement, feeling a little more uplifted by the fact that despite all their suffering through the years, at least the two of them could always relate to each other. 

“Yeah. The only movie you could make that anyone from our highschool would actually wanna watch would be one that proved guys like Kyle McDermott right.”

There was barely a pause when suddenly, Richie turned to the smaller man with mouth agape.

“Oh. Oh my god, Eds. You’re a genius.” 

“Huh?”

“What if… what if we do that. Prove them right!” Richie flailed his arms and made big dramatic air-quotes, “We prove them _‘right’_ and we make a gay porno.”

The sudden exclamation was honestly shocking, and Eddie could only raise his eyebrows and try to process what the hell Richie was saying to him.

“Sex _always_ sells! We have all the tools and talent we need. It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant.” He started pacing in frantic circles, eyes wild with an enthusiasm Eddie hadn’t seen on him for months. “I already have some equipment from just, you know, _years_ of making stupid movies; there’s plenty of strip clubs around and we could pick up some talent - oh, but a budget… oh, no that’s easy I can convince Stan to - _oh_ , and _Eddie_ , you’d be the perfect, twinky spit-fire lead!”

“I’m- I’m sorry, _what did you just say?_ ”

Leaving no room for Eddie to bristle at him, Richie continued excitedly, “I can fucking see it, it’s so clear: we make a film, a porno, all these assholes who have moved out of our hometown want to see it. _Everyone_ wants to see the kids they bullied in school get hot and fuck, right? They show their friends because how many people can say the losers from their graduating class are pornstars now, and--”

“Richie... I don’t know what world you live in, but no one wants to see me having sex,” Eddie interrupted. It was a stupid point to get hung up on, but the cogs in his head were already struggling to process _how_ this was a good idea at all and Richie volunteering Eddie as some kind of perfect porn star was even more confusing. This was so out of left field.

Richie’s eyes flickered over Eddie before he returned to his manic pacing and ignoring Eddie’s critique. “No, you just said it! It’s everything they don’t know they want. _We_ get coin for every time _they_ got to feel good for writing some evil bullshit on our lockers. Pretend to prove them right, they feel self-righteous so they buy it, and we take their money. And we get the last laugh because they get shameful boners from it. It’s like revenge porn... but it’s _our_ revenge and, like, ethical. It’s gay reparations. ”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not gay.” He meant to say it jokingly, but the ‘pretty sure’ came out strained.

“No, but you’re convincingly twinky.”

“ _Fuck you!”_

Eddie was torn between laughing at the absurdity and genuinely considering the idea. It was ridiculous and impossible and so, _so_ embarrassing, but something about Richie’s feverish excitement had him charmed. 

“This isn’t funny, Richie,” he said, though a laugh danced on the tail end of his words. 

“I’ve played truth or dare with you, you Truth Bitch. You said at Mike’s graduation party that if you were single you’d bonk a guy just to try it. Look, you’ve got that straight confidence or whatever so there’s no awkward feelings. It’s just fun work. We’d be doing a job where we get to hook up with some people. We could pay rent.” Eddie gave an agreeable but ultimately noncommittal shrug, resisting Richie’s charming smile with everything he had. “Look, just brainstorm with me at least. You’re super hot and fit, and I can work a camera. Why not, right?”

The string of compliments directed at him was not something Eddie had ever expected to pour out of Richie’s trashmouth, and his cheeks lit up. He tried to sputter a sarcastic retort, only to realize in his friend’s patient silence that Richie was _absolutely, entirely_ serious about all of this. The thrumming of his heart in his ears almost made him miss the bartenders shout for last call, and Eddie began fussing to pull on his coat. 

“Why not- _why not?!_ Richie! Some of us - me, namely - have something called dignity and also a future in business that can _not_ be tainted by-”

“By someone seeing your taint?”

“Oh my god, ew, _no one is going to see my--”_ he began whispering sharply, glaring.

“Eds, look at us.” Richie held the door open for him, haphazardly wrapping his own scarf around his neck and rushing out of the bar after a flustered Eddie zoomed past him. “We’re about to walk home from a shitty pub at 2am on a snowy night, barely buzzed off cheap beer because it was the only place better to go than hanging out in our ass-freezing apartment; all of our friends moved away and are _doing things_ god bless their stupid, sexy hearts, while we still live in our shitty hometown; we have _three months_ of unpaid bills and I put them in the fucking bin to take to recycling in the hopes we’ll get a cent out of it. You’re a grandpa that still goes to school, which is cool and everything, but with you working at a knock-off Starbucks and me being the shitty bartender at a club barely anybody goes to anymore...we’re not exactly impressive. We have _no_ dignity. There is _nothing_ that we haven’t already fucked up. We have _nothing_ to lose but our apartment.”

Eddie stopped walking to look at Richie. The moment was oddly somber for the topic at hand: soft snow fell silently around them, powdering the broad shoulders of the man before him. Richie’s eyes were alight with hope, barely noticeable behind the thick frames of his glasses, and Eddie’s heart swelled with a strange admiration. It had been so long since the last time he looked this bright.

“You’re gonna be in it too?” he asked.

“Obviously. We have a limited supply of resources so, yeah,” Richie chuckled.

Doubts and thoughts melted together in Eddie’s head: _This is stupid. This won’t work. But it’s Richie’s idea. Richie’s ideas are always stupid. They’re also always good. He looks happy. I want to try it. Why do I want to try it?_

Eddie bit his lip, then dusted the snow off of Richie’s coat and scowled. The wild grin of his roommate never faltered.

“All right. All right. Let’s go home and figure this out. But I need another beer.”


	3. desperate times, desperate measures

The refrigerator stood dead as the rest of their power, the beer still cold from the sheer chill of the apartment. The two men were still wrapped their hats and jackets, bundled on the couch with layers of blanket covering Eddie’s legs as he crossed them over his roommate’s lap. 

Notebook illuminated by a table full of candles, Richie jotted down ideas about all the wild ways they could rack up an audience, and all the things they could film. Since they’d arrived home Eddie had become oddly quiet, cradling his beer wistfully, but Richie was happy to enthusiastically take the reigns; for once in his life he was justified in shouting all the dirty thoughts that raced through his head... it was for a creative and just cause, after all.

“Richie...” Eddie interrupted him in the middle of a creative string of expletives describing some bizarre position.

“Yeah, you’re right, scrap that. You’re like really domineering, maybe we can find a guy who’d be into--”

“I don’t think I want to fuck a guy I don’t know.” 

Richie rested his pen behind his ear, raising an eyebrow. He’d known from the moment he’d made his pitch in the bar that there was a plethora of reasons Eddie would hate something like this: he’d never been very sexually adventurous, settling into (what Richie assumed to be) milquetoast, long-term monogamous relationships easily. He wasn’t gay. And most obviously, the distaste for dirtiness that ruled his life was a clear obstacle.

So much so that the stroll home was consumed by a whirlwind presentation of what felt like a full highschool sex ed course on the dangers of STIs, which Richie patiently listened to. Once all the worrisome factoids had been exhausted, he reassured Eddie in full seriousness that this was supposed to be fun, and it wouldn’t be fun if everything wasn’t completely safe. Following a very earnest pinky promise to abide by that rule, he made a joke about how if Eddie wanted, the entire thing could have nothing but dryhumping and phone sex and it could be called ‘Leave Room For Jesus.’ Richie thought it was very funny, but more hilarious was Eddie pausing to genuinely consider it.

The rest of the walk devolved into them shouting titles for their sex tape, puns and parodies and scenarios shot back and forth until they stumbled into the apartment laughing.

And so, the fairly vanilla Eddie had been fully on-board. 

“No? There’s tons of hot, clean dudes out there who’d be into you,” said Richie, as casually as he could. “Gay guys love an excuse to bang a straight guy. You deserve to have some wild sexcapades one year out of your horrible, long-ass relationship, you know.”

Eddie tugged at the yarn of a blanket. It had become frayed to nothing but wispy fibers, and Richie realized he must have been fidgeting with it for the last half-hour. 

“You know you can rely on me, Eds,” he affirmed softly. For as much as they loved to pester each other, he needed it to be known that the last thing he ever wanted to do was put Eddie into a position that made him unhappy; all of this was for the opposite, to maintain their comfortable lives as roommates, secure a roof over their heads, and keep things as they should be. It seemed to resonate, because in place of a response or the typical bite-back of ‘that’s not my name, don’t call me that,’ he received a meaningful look. The seriousness of it terrified Richie back into comedy mode, playfulness dancing through his tone once again. “As the director, I’ve got your back. Look, if the gay angle - gayngle, if you will - is too much, we don’t have to do that. I just think, you know, we’re over 30 and there’s tons of straight shit out there so from a storytelling perspective it might be kind of a boring gimmick to play it het--”

“No _no_ , it’s not that, really. I’m not worried about that. Your idea made sense.”

His hesitancy to expand on whatever it was he was mulling on was palpable so Richie leaned in close, resting an arm on Eddie’s chest as he peered into those dark brown eyes. “Ohhh… I get it,” Richie mused after a moment of studying him. A dawning worry flashed over Eddie’s features and he gripped the blanket, the beat of his heart curiously rapid against Richie’s forearm. “You only wanna get down and dirty with _me_. Understandable, but as tempting as it is I’m gonna have to say no, Eddie Spaghetti. I couldn’t _possibly_ lead you on like that.” 

Eddie shoved a hand against his face and pushed him away, laughing.

“In your dreams, Tozier.” 

With a grin, Richie returned to tapping his notebook in thought. But Eddie’s eyes on him were unrelenting, a watchful prickle on the back of his neck, and so he turned to meet the gaze. 

In a wavering voice, Eddie murmured, “I just don’t want to sleep with a stranger. I really _can’t_ sleep with a stranger, that’s just - ugh.” The uncertainty that crossed his face was heart-stoppingly soft, and only a big inhale of courage helped him continue, “But I guess… well, you’re not a stranger. It _could_ be with you, right? I’d do it if it was you.”

“Oh.”

So that was how it was. Richie stared back at him, Eddie’s unfaltering gaze indiscernible and gut-wrenching to be lost in. He melted into a finely-practiced forced grin, trying desperately to bury the dreadful fire that threatened to burst from his chest. “So we’re gonna be fully realizing _your_ dreams now, I get it.”

A kick to his side and Richie was immediately jotting down notes like the proposition had sparked an overflow of ideas, the ink no more than scribbles to occupy a trembling hand. He tried to ignore the way that Eddie’s thighs tensed against his own legs.

“Ugh, _shut up_ , I just know you haven’t been laid in like ten years so I don’t have to be concerned about any hand-me-down diseases you might be carrying.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame really. Ever since your mom died I just haven’t found the same satisfaction in--”

“On second thought, I take it back, I don’t want you to give me your rabies.” Eddie kicked the blanket off of Richie’s lap and paced around the room in thought. 

Good. False alarm. 

“Hah! Yeah, anyway _someone_ needs to be behind the camera and honestly, this being my directorial debut is the dream I never knew I had. Maybe we can get Ben...”

“ _Ben!?”_ Eddie froze on the spot.

“Yeah, he’s like the hottest guy we know. Well, after you, anyway.” A wink to show he was kidding, but Richie’s stomach clenched at the sudden image of a very real Ben with Eddie instead of the hypothetical, faceless man he’d so enthusiastically imagined his roommate being ruined by up until this point. As vague ideas were beginning to find roots in reality, Richie was starting to think that this maybe wasn’t his finest plan.

“ _Absolutely not_ \- Ben is… he’s too sweet. And he’s _so_ straight I don’t think he’d even be able to pretend to look at me like that.”

“Look at you like what? It’s a porno, dude, not a Disney movie; it’s not about feelings. It’s about how your _dick_ feels.”

“Look at me like--” Eddie cut himself off. His pacing hastened, words spilling out a mile a minute, “Rich, if you think this porn thing is going to work then I’m down with it, seriously, but I just. I’d feel a lot better if it was you. And if you don’t want to do it I get it. I’m your roommate, maybe it’s weird, but we’re adults and it’s just - yeah it’s just for money and somebody’s _dick feelings,_ so, you know, _not_ about you and me, but desperate times call for desperate measures so--”

“Woah, okay okay, ‘ _desperate measures_ ,' I know you’re out of my league but I’m not _that_ ugly, thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Eddie laughed, but then his voice caught before he could finish the next sentence and he stared hard at Richie again. “I just mean--” 

Caught up in the gaze, Richie felt his brain screaming that this was absolutely a bad idea. He was already having trouble processing Eddie’s clumsy blabber and this moment of silence was his chance to take it all back, to loudly backstep and laugh it off as another one of his stupid, unrealistic entrepreneurial jokes that’d never take off when he could just as easily get a second job. But... something about the seriousness in Eddie’s eyes rendered him speechless and all he could do was stare back from the couch.

“I just mean that I trust you. We’re friends and it wouldn’t be weird to have sex with you, I don’t think.”

Richie’s heart barely had a chance to flutter before an overwhelming wave of guilt consumed him. 

He hadn’t come up with this idea to try and get Eddie in bed - no way - because the chances of that happening were unthinkably impossible. Had he? Was this his wicked subconscious manipulating a way to finally, _finally_ fulfill all of his unrelenting desires? Richie felt sick. If only he was so brilliant. 

The truth was that he’d felt so secure suggesting this money-making scheme because of the certainty that Eddie wouldn’t want to come near him with a ten-foot pole. But now, despite the vast impossibility, his stupid idea had somehow led to this.

' _Desperate measures_ ’ echoed in his head and a cold, familiar pain twisted up alongside his shame. Right. Just desperate measures for desperate times.

With a casual grin and nonchalant shrug, Richie agreed, “...All right, Eds. All compelling points. I promise I’ll shower for you.”

“Yeah! Okay, yeah. It won’t be weird,” Eddie repeated, but it sounded more like a question.

“We’ve lived together for like ten years and haven’t managed to fuck yet, so there’s obviously no concern about that. Why would it be? It’s just friends hooking up so we can pay our rent. No homo, et cetera, et cetera. I can think of weirder things and they’re probably all in this notebook. It’s not gonna be a big deal.”

An excessive explanation, he felt, but it seemed to soothe Eddie’s nervousness about asking in the first place. He coolly jotted ‘ _R + E scene_ ’ in the notebook, ignoring the jitter of the ink. He only noticed that he had been anxiously tapping his foot when Eddie flopped back down onto the couch next to him and casually kicked his legs over Richie’s just as before.

“...Thank you, Rich.”

“No big deal,” he said again.

\--------------------------

Richie couldn’t sleep. 

They’d used the last of Eddie’s laptop battery to watch another episode in Stars Hollow before concluding that watching Luke and Lorelai dance together at a wedding was a satisfying place to stop, especially when Eddie got exhausted by Richie’s chattering.

He had a bad habit of barking jokes during sappy moments because they usually made his ears burn in a horrible combination of second-hand embarrassment and deep longing. Also - most importantly - talking over the show made Eddie angry, which was always a win in his book. But he’d learned his lesson when Eddie had begun to rewind any time Richie ruined the moment, so he’d finally improved at shutting his mouth. If anything was worse than stewing in the awkward silence of watching romantic moments together, it was having to do it twice.

But now, in the dark silence of his freezing room, Richie was left to slow-dance songs from the episode echoing unrelentingly alongside his list of regrets from the day.

The first regret was getting fired from his second job three months ago. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The next nauseating regret was admitting to Eddie’s face that he thought he was hot. Absolutely horrible, tipsy slip-up. He’d tried to make it casual by saying it again later and feigning flirtiness, but three lefts never make a right, and he regretted those too. 

Regret three was slipping on his ass twice in the driveway and once on his walk home. He was really sore, and also the walk sucked.

The final regret (which was a whopper and possibly one of the worst things he’d ever done) was agreeing to Eddie’s proposal to have sex.

He regretted it because he wanted it _so_ _badly_. 

Before, it was a dream that he’d become content to keep stowed away in the recesses of his mind. At best: wistful fodder for lonely, guilt-ridden nights, and at worst: the thing that distracted him away from anything more serious than a date or two with potential partners. Tonight, the dream became an awaiting reality, because how could he deny so earnest a request from his dear friend? It wasn’t fully a selfish agreement, no - it was for Eddie, Eddie’s comfort came first. 

But despite the truth of this, Richie was still consumed by the turmoil of getting exactly what he wanted in the worst possible way; he couldn’t bear the idea of knowing Eddie’s body then never being able to have it again. Of never being able to kiss him the way he wanted to. Of having Eddie’s hands on him only because of _desperate measures._

Eddie’s hands…. 

Thoughts of the way they’d clung tightly to his waist bubbled up in Richie’s mind, and he swallowed, letting his own hand slip into his sweatpants. Any self-piteous woes faded against the consuming heat that coursed through him as he pressed up against his palm. He was half-hard already if not just from the sex-oriented conversations of the day, desire magnified by memories of how Eddie shyly looked at him with those huge brown eyes, and how his breath felt on Richie’s neck, and how badly he _wanted_ \--

“Hey, Richie?”

“ _Agh!_ ” Richie jerked his hand out of his pants and lay flat, eyes wide open to search the darkness for the voice. Eddie was standing in his doorway, looking a little lost. “E-Eddie! Wh- uhh--” 

“That window in my room - you know the one, by the closet - it’s stuck _again_ and there’s this god-awful draft. It’s like the arctic in there, I feel like I’m coming down with something just being next to it…. Can I crash with you?”

He was already making his way over to the bed, and Richie scrambled to sit up and even his breath. It didn’t seem like Eddie noticed anything, but that didn’t stop Richie’s heart from feeling like it was going to drop right out of his ass.

“Yeah, sounds bad, um, yeah. Sure. You know your mom used to come into my room and ask me the same thing.”

“Cool, thanks,” yawned Eddie, crawling in beside him. “Hey, you never saw my texts right? How’s your tailbone?”

“You calling me an old man?” Richie slid back into the blankets, rolling onto his side so his back was to his bedmate. He was certain his heartbeat was powerful enough to reverberate through the mattress.

“You fell pretty hard, that ice is killer. I mean, it was funny and you’re a piece of shit, but I was worried you might’ve been in a lot of pain trying to walk home after that. Sorry, by the way. I think I passed, though.”

Richie loved being worried after by Eddie, but in this situation he wished he’d let it go. This was too many Regrets Of The Day being stacked at once. So he gave a big fake yawn to feign exhaustion and catch his breath, “Iiiii’m fine. And good job, nerd.”

Suddenly, a glacial chill jolted through his body where Eddie had curled up his legs and pressed two cold feet beneath Richie’s shirt, right on the small of his back.

“ _Jesus - EDDIE!_ ” Richie exclaimed, flinging a long arm his way. Eddie laughed and laughed, clinging to the sheets while Richie grabbed his legs and tried and failed to roll him out of the bed. “You little piece of shit!”

They wrestled for a minute, and finally calmed down after Richie whacked the smaller man a few times with a pillow until he cried mercy and choked out an apology. Quiet befell them again, and now that they were situated and conveniently warmer from the battle, Richie squeezed his eyes shut and tried to lull himself to sleep.

“Hey, Richie,” Eddie’s whisper broke the silence.

“ _Yes_ , dickhead?”

He could _hear_ Eddie grinning triumphantly. But the soft voice continued, “Um… my feet really are cold and your back is really warm. If my circulation gets too bad, I might—“

“Are you serious?” Richie looked over his shoulder, glaring even though he knew Eddie couldn’t see through the pitch darkness. Usually Richie tried to be the most annoying one, but Eds was on another level today. “No! Keep your toes off me. Why don’t you put on socks?”

“Umm, that’s disgusting? Sleeping in socks doesn’t allow your skin to breathe and the trapped sweat can lead to athlete’s foot and a plethora of other fungal issues,” Eddie stated seriously, “Do you have socks on right now? Do you? That’s so gross, dude.”

“ _Yes_ I have socks on because I’m a normal person - just… ugh. Here.”

Against his better judgement, Richie sidled backwards until he felt frosty toes bump against his heel. He closed his eyes and slid his feet between Eddie’s, heart hammering once again.

“Is that better, princess?”

“Yes,” Eddie answered softly, sleepily, from the pillow behind him.

“Okay. Goodnight. Try not to catch my athlete’s foot.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

Richie ended the conversation by pretending he was falling asleep, but the gentle breath that danced across his neck for the rest of the night kept him wide awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know if eddie and richie fully enjoy gilmore girls, but i can see them getting obsessed with it. they probably both identify with lorelai for different reasons and have secret crushes on luke, if we're being real.
> 
> also we'll be meeting the other losers soon...and maybe, someday, they'll actually start making their movie.  
> thanks for reading!


	4. eggnog and bourbon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for full clarity and context i should note that richie is not out to most people and eddie is still kind of repressed. maybe they’ll figure it out someday ...

* * *

They showered the next morning at Mike’s apartment - at least, Eddie did. Richie insisted that because it was so cold he didn’t sweat, and therefore didn’t need one.

“You’re a disgusting troll person,” Eddie wrinkled his nose. He was cycling slowly beside Richie, having forced him to come to the cafe for a hot breakfast. 

“There _is_ a chance I’ll be living under a bridge next month. You’re free to come hang out,” Richie yawned. Eddie noticed that the bags under his eyes were darker than usual, and he guessed that waking up this early had been hard on him. “Hey, so when we were picking up Mike’s keys from him at the library, I was thinking… it’d make a good set.”

“A what?”

“A set, you know, to do it. We have to have someplace to bone. And desk sex is hot.”

Eddie choked; he’d nearly forgotten about their plan. “You will _not_ be able to get Mike to let you do that. Richie, libraries are a public resource! Taxpayer dollars! No, that’s off the table.”

“We could be _on_ the table. The forbidden element adds to it! We’re making a fantasy, right? If we don't lean into it, how will we stand out?” Richie replied. He went on about sexy librarians and the appeal of hooking up in a place where you’re supposed to be quiet, and Eddie tuned out the salacious explanations, thoughts drifting to Mike.

Mike was the only other one of their friends who hadn’t moved out of Derry. They’d meet up every Friday for drinks and karaoke, and sometimes on random weekdays the duo would play a game where they stalked Mike around the library to see how long it’d take before he noticed them. While he actually had a salary, it wasn't very good, so he and Eddie and Richie had fallen into a guilt-free back-and-forth with lending each other money when either party was in a tight spot. None of them were fond of sharing their monetary struggles with their better-off friends, so the understanding among the three of them was appreciated.

Unfortunately, he still owed them for a month’s rent from last summer, so asking for help with their bills this time was out of the question. However, it seemed that Richie felt he could use the owed favor as leverage.

“He’s the only other one that can work a camera, so with that and the library usage we’d clear the favor,” he planned, “We split profits with him… and anyone with eyes can agree that Mike could totally get it, so he should have a scene too.” 

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Oh - so it really is going to be with people we know?”

Richie seemed surprised that Eddie was surprised. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be but, I don’t know, you said last night you were more comfortable with people you trust, so I just figured…”

He seemed to flounder for words, but Eddie interjected when he realized they had reached the cafe. “What did you want for breakfast?”

Turned out, Richie wanted a toasted bagel with with too much cream cheese and a sunnyside-up egg draped on top. He chewed it loudly while telling Stanley their new plan over the phone.

A prudish blush painted Eddie’s cheeks; he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed listening to Richie lay out their pornographic plan so easily to someone else; but then, he’d always overdone it just to rile up the strait-laced Stan.

He tried hard not to listen to the risqué conversation while he fumbled with the tie on the back of his apron.

Warm fingertips brushed his hands suddenly, and a startled glance back revealed Richie had slipped behind him with phone nestled between cheek and shoulder. He smiled, reaching out to help Eddie tie the bow while rambling on about something profane.

Somehow it was all too overwhelming. Eddie zoomed to the other side of the cafe with a mutter, “I can do it myself.”

He was left alone after that. The phone conversation took Richie’s full focus when it became clear that Stan was going to keep hanging up on him, and Eddie lost himself in cleaning mugs and smacking the espresso machine into working. A small line formed right at 7; he was too busy to notice when Richie slipped out the door.

A handful of texts buzzed in close to the end of his shift. Eddie ignored them - he was trying to understand a bumbling customer who had a long list of confusing drinks, then lost his temper and snapped at the man. The guy struggled to flip him off on the way out, his hands full of cupholders, and Eddie viciously returned the gesture. He slammed the cafe sign to ‘CLOSED’ ten minutes earlier than usual. 

Alone behind the counter, he finally checked his inbox. 

**Richie Tozier:** dude i’m a freaking hero. U will not believe the progress i’ve made today  
 **Richie Tozier:** stan wired me so much money to make porn LOL can u believe  
 **Richie Tozier:** ok well it’s not that much but it was rly hard to convince him so i count it a win  
 **Richie Tozier:** sry if i got in the way this morning by the way, the bagel was good. Ty   
**Richie Tozier:** did you know ben will be in town for xmas? hes staying with mike. I’m gonna make him help   
**Eddie Kaspbrak:** Really?? We need to make sure we can pay him back. We really can’t bust this if Stan ACTUALLY lent us money...  
 **Richie Tozier:** no man we GOTTA bust ……..   
**Richie Tozier: …...** bust a nut  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Dropping dinner off at Mike’s, then I’ll be home. I got you a sandwich but I might put it in the can to match your trashmouth

Pocketing the phone, Eddie finished up his shift and bagged the cafe’s unsold leftovers for his friends, making a fresh cup of tea to warm his hands for the walk.

\-------------------

“Hey, Mikey!” Eddie used his forehead to press Mike’s apartment buzzer, burdened by bags of food. “Can you come down? I’ve got no hands.”

Mike appeared downstairs, taking all the bags out of his hands, only accepting his returned keys and the tea once they hiked the narrow steps and settled in the flat.

“Hmm… Eddie, you look a little…” Mike’s brow was furrowed.

“Like shit? Long shift… long _week_ ,” Eddie rubbed the permanent dark circles under his eyes. Honestly, Mike didn’t look much better off; ever since he lost his parents the holidays had been lonely and rough on him, and it was clear from the lack of decoration in the apartment that he wasn’t feeling the cheer this year. Eddie related, but having had a more complicated parental relationship he found that he was perfectly happy quietly celebrating with just Mike and Richie. Maybe next year they could all take a vacation together, instead, and meet Stan and Ben somewhere on the way….

“I feel you.” Mike opened up the bag, a grateful smile crossing his face when he saw the prepackaged food inside. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Oh, shut up. I know it’s nothing spectacular. When our power’s back on I’ll make you a real meal, I know roast beef isn’t your favorite but it’s all we had left.”

“True, not your usual.”

They liked to switch off bringing each other a plate of whatever they were cooking every Wednesday, to help get through the week. Eddie preferred bringing Mike mushroom lasagna, because he always had a big reaction like it was the first time he’d eaten something so delicious even if it was the same every time.

“Worthy payment in return for Richie pounding down the library door this morning,” Mike said through a mouthful of sandwich. “By the way, are you two… good? You said your power is _still_ off? Do you need a place to stay?”

Eddie explained their circumstances, denying the offer because he was so humiliated about it all. But when he started spiraling into paranoid chatter about how cold weather can lead to countless respiratory issues, bronchitis, or worse: hypothermia and even _frostbite!_ \- Mike silently stood up and started rolling out the sleeping bag.

“Give Rich a call and tell him to hurry up or I’ll eat his sandwich, too.”

“Thanks, Mikey,” sighed Eddie, grateful but guilty about imposing. He rationalized that it was better than having to sleep in layered sweatshirts, and as much as he loved an excuse to bother Richie he would give him a break if not just for tonight. 

A hazy memory drifted into his mind, of warm feet tucked between cold ones and that comforting musk of Richie’s sheets that made his head giddy. He shook away the feeling, thoughts of yesterday reminding him that there was vital information he needed to indulge in Mike before his blabbermouth roommate arrived.

“Um… Before I invite Richie. I should tell you something.”

Mike’s eyebrows raised expectantly, almost like he knew what Eddie was going to say but was holding his tongue to let him speak. Unfortunately, the words were hard to get out, so Eddie choked an over-explanation of their rent situation (again), with lengthy details about their nostalgia trip at the bar.

“...So after that, we decided. That. We. We would… we decided, we’re going to....” he pushed on, and Mike looked like he was trying to be supportive despite Eddie’s weird hesitation. He took a deep breath and decisively chopped at the air with a hand, all his words spilling out. “We’re going to make a gay pornography movie to try and sell to all of our old classmates. I know, you’re like, ‘what the fuck,’ right? It’s ridiculous. Fuck those guys. I know it’s ridiculous. But we’re doing it and we apparently have a budget now - Stan helped, I guess - and Richie is definitely, _definitely_ going to try to get you to be involved _somehow -_ so if he does just tell him to shut up and I’ll tell him to shut up and hopefully he just won’t talk about it at all.”

Eddie knew he sounded manic, so he paced the room in a frenzied panic and blathered on to cover his embarrassment at Mike’s shocked silence.

But then Mike started laughing so hard that he was wheezing and Eddie was hitting him on the back to help him get air. The hollow thwacking made Eddie laugh too, and once they could talk again they laughed together at how Richie was absurd even when he was smart.

“I think I get it,” Mike mused after they’d calmed down and Eddie explained more. “I don’t know how I could help though.”

“I don’t really know, either,” lied Eddie. “The plan is all in Richie’s head, I’m just along for the ride, as usual. I _really_ don’t want to get evicted either and... I wanted to let you know ahead of time because it’s kind of a lot to take in and Richie is definitely going to try and rope you into some bullshit.”

“...I’m a little surprised you agreed to it, actually,” Mike said. Their eyes met, and Eddie gave a little shrug.

“Well, it sounded… kind of… fun?”

When his friend made a puzzled little smile, he decided now was a good time to text Richie.

 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Sleepover at Mike’s apt, come over. He pities us  
 **Richie Tozier:** !!!!!!! no socks on my feet tonite! dobby is free!  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** I thought you read the book, that’s not how the sock thing goes  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Grab the next gilmore disc too, I have to know if Luke is going to make a move

He looked around the flat, with its no-frills furniture, packed bookshelf, well-worn reclining leather chair that belonged to Mike’s dad, and lots of pictures of family and friends hung on the wall. Bathed in a cozy yellow light, it was warm but far too lonely.

 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** And can you bring the xmas decorations? 

\--------------------

Richie showed up with a santa hat pulled on over his beanie, proudly having lugged two huge boxes of decorations under his long arms. 

After stringing Eddie along in a lie where he ‘forgot’ to bring him his toiletries and a change of clothes, he immediately got to draping tinsel along Mike’s walls before the librarian could protest.

They all split a bottle of eggnog and bourbon, arguing tipsily about which oldies to put on the record player while lights were strung around the doorframe and across the back of the couch. Mike revealed he had the Mariah Carey Christmas album, to which Richie drunkenly hollered, “Well fuck oldies!” and immediately put it on. The tiny fake tree was hoisted up beside the TV until Eddie carried it to the dinner table, throwing a fit about how too many power sources all together like that could lead to overheating and a blown fuse. They yelled when Mike put all of the ornaments on the front of the tree, to which he defended that no one sees the back. Richie called him a lunatic and said, “Uh, Santa does, obviously!”

While Mike shuffled around the kitchen making some late-night cookies, Eddie directed Richie on how to best fix the haphazard tinsel. His directions became so fussy that the taller man exasperatedly swept Eddie off his feet, lifting him up so he could access the wall himself.

“All right, boss,” Richie’s tone was clearly annoyed, his cheek pressed against Eddie’s side and arms clasped around his thighs, “If you’re gonna do it right, do it yourself.”

Eddie did his best, though he still had to direct Richie around now that he was his legs, shouting things like, “Left. _Your other left._ Richie!! We are facing the same direction, left is the same for both of us!! You are such a piece of shit!” when Richie danced to the right.

They lumbered about absurdly like that for a few minutes and when Mike returned from the kitchen and saw them, he crumpled into another laughing fit.

Eddie eventually found himself on the couch, the warmth of alcohol, cookies, and love lulling him into a light slumber. The other two were chatting softly in the kitchen, but Eddie couldn’t hear them over the warble of Nat King Cole on the speakers.

He buried his face in the jacket that was draped over the arm of the sofa; it was Richie’s and the faint smell of him on it dragged Eddie back to sluggish memories of curling up beside a broad figure. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to bring the memory closer - to change it, improve it, so that this time maybe he could find the courage to reach out and touch the person that lay beside him.

Colorful glints of light blinked methodically behind Eddie’s eyes, drawing him out of sleep with their inviting flickering. He awoke still a little bit drunk, his mouth felt coated with sugar. Two knit blankets were draped over his shoulders, and peering over the edge of the couch on the floor he found Richie all curled up in Mike’s sleeping bag. Eddie tried to quietly exit the room, but the spike of adrenaline when he thought about cavities had him stumbling into the bathroom. When he returned Richie had stirred.

“Eds,” he mumbled, feeling around for his thick glasses. His bedhead was obscene: all flat on one side but fluffed on the other, and Eddie told him how bad it looked as he crawled back onto the couch. “Haha… eight crazy nights’ll do that, y’know.”

“That’s Hanukkah, dummy.”

Richie didn’t reply and Eddie saw that he was asleep again. All the lights were off save for their Christmas decorations, leaving the room with a dim glow. Twinkles of pink and orange and blue tinted Richie’s sleep-flushed cheeks at varying intervals, reflecting off of his glasses. _Stupid, why put them on if you’re just going to go back to bed?_ Eddie thought, and reached down to pull them off of Richie’s face. He placed them gently on the desk, only to look back and see that Richie’s eyes were cracked open.

“Oh, sorry - I thought you--” Eddie began.

“S’okay. Can’t see you now though,” came the sluggish reply. “Hey, Mike is in.”

“...What?”

“He’s gonna be in the movie. And he said he’d let us use the library.”

“ _What?_ Really?”

Richie was sleepier than he was amused, rolling onto his side. “He was breaking my arm trying to be a part of it honestly. Seemed really determined to help.”

“Likely.”

“He’ll film too.”

“Isn’t that your job, Director?”

There was a short pause, then Richie’s eyes slid shut and he murmured, “For our part, I mean.”

Eddie lay still on his back, finding sleep only once Richie’s quiet snores evened into steady breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted a lowkey holiday chapter for the lads to chill out in bc i wish good things for them..  
> but next episode gets longer and maybe a little saucier! ty for reading!!


	5. the gang’s all here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapters will be getting a little longer from here. we’ll get to know the other losers, but their relationships are a little different and it all circles back to reddie. heads up that i really wanted to let the gang to have fun together, but rich and eddie remain the focus throughout. we won’t be seeing anything explicit between the others!

Ben Hascome, the long-lashed, strong-jawed, sweet-eyed hunk of everyone’s dreams, tip-toed into Derry with the same gentle subtlety he did everything in his life with. One soft knock on the bar’s counter during Richie’s shift and a big bear hug later, the two were catching up over life and an old fashioned.

He would be staying with Mike for the rest of the holiday, and Eddie had already packed up their bags with the lie that they had managed to pay off their bills so the insistent librarian would let them leave. Richie liked to maintain an air of invincibility to life’s harshness and Eddie was desperate to be seen as anything but a burden, so in whispered agreement from sofa and sleeping bag, they agreed to leave the visitor to less crowded evenings, painting a picture that they were fine.

When things were rough, Ben always brought an assuring of comfort to Richie’s life. He was whip-smart and could keep up with Richie’s sharp tongue, but unfortunately wielded that cleverness only for good; Richie had yet been unable to get him to sink to rude witticisms despite years of harassment. He regretted youthful days of being cruel when his chubby friend was only ever kind, the bite having twisted up from an envy of Ben’s total earnestness: the kind of unarmored, wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve way of living that Richie still struggled to embrace for himself. That jealousy carried into their adulthood, but now it manifested as a fond admiration.

His sweetness was honestly a bit intimidating, so Richie hadn’t actually intended to invite Ben to join their movie cast. But apparently Mike had let slip just how bad the bill and rent situation was, and in an utterly unpredictable turn of events Ben actually _asked_ if he could help. Richie was caught in a rare moment of surprise, to which he could only sputter out a ‘yes.’ 

Despite not being interested in men, Ben’s undeniable swagger and relaxed confidence meant he could sweep anyone off their feet and still be their best friend later. It was the perfect storm, and Richie would be an idiot not to fully utilize the absolute power of this man’s allure.

Now they sat opposite one another, his brain running at a hundred miles a minute while he mentally rewired all the potential this unlocked. 

“It’s really just you and Mike as the Friend Hires, then,” he said, leaning on the bar after explaining the entire thing so far. “Mike’s helping out with a lot of other stuff, but he hasn’t dated in so long I honestly just think he’s looking to get his rocks off. Nerds, you know how they are. Well, of course you do - you are one. So, I’m going to hire like, two more guys and that’s about all I can afford with Stan’s budget... Y’know it’s kind of funny how this worked out, because having your wiener out around your best friends seems a _million_ times worse than randos, in my opinion, but… to each his own I guess. Anyway, our dear Eduardo is sensitive to stranger danger so this will probably put him at ease a little.” 

“You, too?”

“Yeah, I told you I’m gonna be in it.”

“No, I mean, will it ease you too? You seem stressed.” There it was, that trademark kindness Ben so effortlessly flaunted.

“Oh. Come on, _obviously_ I’m fine with anything,” scoffed Richie. He unravelled a very long, very invisible list as if the air was a king’s scroll and added in a British accent, “The good sir _must_ have seen my fuck-et list.”

“First time I’m getting a gander, but…” Ben peered at Richie’s empty hands, “Well, it’s a little shorter than I expected, Tozier. And never quite expected to see ‘Sir Richard fucks His Highness Edward per the prince’s request’ on there. Are you gonna be okay having this scene with Eddie? You guys do live together.”

“It’s no big deal Ben,” Richie dropped the accent as a blush creeped up his neck. He was getting annoyed that he had to keep repeating ‘no big deal’ when even he didn’t fully believe it, so he added, “What’s a kiss between pals, anyway?”

“Not inherently weird, sure, but asking your roommate to bend over and take it is pretty daring if you ask me.” 

Richie was gagged. “What the _fuck_ , Benjamin--”

“Woah, call the presses: is this what it’s like when Trashmouth is flustered? Aren’t _you_ the one making a filthy movie?”

“I just got a hankering that lil’ Eddie is not the face-down, ass-up type. That’s reserved for the pros,” Richie shut him down. He’d never admit it, but he had occasionally allowed himself to ponder the persona his roommate would embody in the bedroom. Shameful imaginings of a demure Eddie splayed out beneath him dared to distract before Ben’s voice dragged Richie back down to earth.

“So, who do you think I’d get to be with?”

Scribbling on the back of a nearby receipt, Richie made a chart, connecting funny icons of his friends with a bunch of arrows. “Hmm, well, here’s all the potential matches… I met a writer online and he’s coming into town soon to help me work on a script and story, but I think it’ll mostly go like this.”

“Oooh, you and me would get one?” Ben turned the paper towards himself to look at it more carefully. 

“Mike too,” Richie said quickly, tap-tapping with the back of the pen on the icon of Ben and Mike together, “If you’re good with that. But yeah, I need to be in at least one more scene to buffer out the run time, if that’s, uh, fine by you.”

“Sure, man, you’re a catch,” he smiled easily and Richie felt his stomach do a tiny swoop. Ben Hascome truly embodied the swagger of a straight man who was totally secure in his sexuality and therefore fully allowed to say things like that with earnestness. That envy gripped Richie again and he offered one more old fashioned, though it was denied in lieu of a sweet goodbye and Ben finally making his way to Mike’s.

 **Richie:** hey eds guess who’s ALSO in  
 **Richie:** BENJAMIN ‘HANDSOME’ HASCOME  
 **Spaghetti:** OMG You seriously asked him? This is so embarrassing  
 **Richie:** yes i told him you personally requested to see his cock  
 **Spaghetti:** You know that I did NOT and I WILL kill you if you actually said that to him  
 **Richie:** ur secret is safe with me! ;) ;) ;)

Every minute of the rest of his shift was split between bartending and boldly proposing roles to visiting patrons who seemed like they might be interested. The responses were mixed, and skewed to mostly useless.

He did, however, manage to get one contact when his favorite regular, Betty, stopped in. They’d bonded one night a few years back when she’d drunkenly asked out her lady friend right there at the counter, gotten terribly rejected, then confided in Richie through sobs when he’d found her crumpled beside the dumpster out back. As they sat together in the alleyway mud, he shared - for the first time outloud to someone he wasn’t hooking up with - his own circumstances. Ever since, she visited him at the bar every week.

“She’s really cool. Maybe too cool for what you’re trying to do, but that’ll be up to her,” Betty explained, “She’s kind of a big deal in the blog-o-sphere so maybe she can help you get some hits. We’ve been talking a lot lately about how to reclaim sexual power in a world that favors the straight male gaze, especially with the advent of the internet being this crazy place for distributing porn, so, you know, she’s pretty progressive and interested in experimenting right now. Also maybe one of the sexiest women I’ve ever met, not even just how she looks but her whole aura - like, pure allure.”

“You did catch the part where I mentioned that this was a _gay_ porno, right?” Richie examined the email address.

“She’s bisexual and out online.”

“Very bold. Still not the same thing as a gay guy.”

“Didn’t you say you roped your straight roommate into being in this?”

“I did _not_ rope him into it, he was down.”

“And you’d like to rope him...up.”

“Watch it. Okay, you know what? You’re right. I’m the director, this is my porno and I can cry if I want to! Visions change. Let’s give her a role and we can dismantle the patriarchy together,” he grinned. “Wow, can’t believe I’m an activist now. It’s really that easy.”

“Her name is Beverly Marsh,” Betty tapped the paper. “She’s from Derry and in between jobs so I know she’ll be interested. Tell her we talked, I think she’ll really like you, Richie!”

\--------------------------

Two days and several emails later, he was enjoying a walk with the most entrancing woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Bundled in her stylish wool coat with fire-red hair that floated easily with every jaunty step, Beverly Marsh oozed cool, making Richie feel like a walking piece of garbage as he slouched along beside her. A peek of the messy pajama top hidden away beneath her coat and the way she’d insisted they have cheese fries with their coffees were the only giveaways that she might be a little less put together than let on. 

Her laugh carried like a song whenever he said something stupid, and it was instant friendship when she played along with one of his bits so seriously that Richie had to sit down lest he choke from laughter. Their surprisingly quick camaraderie was cemented by the casual offer to split her last cigarette with him while they sat on a fence in front of the trainyard, and shared a secret with each pass of the light.

“Y’know Miss Marsh, I could do to keep you in my day-to-day,” he said, rubbing the diminished cigarette against the post as he hopped off and they started back to town.

“Don’t you know that respectable people shouldn’t commit to friendship until _after_ seeing each other naked?” Beverly coyly grinned. 

“But I bought you cheese fries!”

“Sure, with the budget from your porn movie. I won’t tell the investor that you’re wasting it on fast food, by the way.”

“Mannn, it’s kinda nuts that you grew up in Derry and we never met,” he said.

“It wasn’t for too long. Just a couple years in middle school… I must have seen you in the halls, actually. Your glasses were bigger then, weren’t they? Broken sometimes,” Bev made circles around her eyes with her hands and Richie mimicked her. “But you know, when I finally got out of my dad’s place and moved, things were a lot better… maybe if I’d stuck around for highschool we’d have been friends - I liked AV Club, too.”

“Better you were there than here.”

“And here hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“Fancy that, me neither. Derry and I have _so_ much in common,” chuckled Richie. “So, are you gonna blog about your hot date with the closeted gay guy?”

The secret had been spilled the night Richie emailed Beverly, who wanted to try adult film and was mostly down with the content - except that she was confused as to why a bunch of straights were manning the project. Richie swore they were going to hire some real gay guys and ran through his whole spiel, before he was compelled to nervously add on a more honest explanation. Maybe it was the freedom of typing out his feelings, or maybe it was the desperation following another freezing night stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder in bed with Eddie, but he was feeling strained. Later, he received an incoming call from an intrigued Beverly and they had their first telephone conversation... which turned out to be rather therapeutic.

Now they were stopped outside her hotel, face-to-face and grinning like they actually were on a date.

“No. I’m not going to talk about that with anyone,” she promised. “Unless you want me to. But I’d rather just write about the process of making this porno, if I have the director’s permission.”

“You bet, Bev. Get us famous. Just no photos of fully nude actors and no spoilers - we gotta keep the audience on the edge of their seat. There’s no point if they know what happens at the end.”

“Really feeling like you missed the opportunity for a good orgasm joke there.”

“Oh shit! Wait, wait, okay, how about: ‘there’s no point if they already know what happens in _his_ end!’ Or, uhhh ‘if they know what’s coming...on _who_!’ Or, ‘if they know who’s coming…?’ Hmm.”

With a little wave, Bev chuckled, “Close, but could use some work. Run it by me again when I meet Eddie later!” 

Where Richie wanted to meet his new actor to get a sense of her demeanor, Eddie wanted to meet everyone formally. He’d set up a little spot in one of the library’s study rooms during daytime hours and invited each person involved for a little one-on-one interview to go over safety precautions.

Richie hadn’t been briefed on what they were yet, but when they’d been piled together on the cold sofa last night he’d gotten a glimpse of Eddie making some big list. This project was as much Eddie’s as it was his, and watching him get caught up in the freedom of it all and take initiative in his own way was satisfying. He’d even shown up in a slender suit and tie for the interviews, which meant he was serious. 

Richie stole a glance at Eddie’s slim-fitted pants from the upstairs overhang as he and Beverly left the pop-up office, their conversation too hushed and distant to overhear but reassuringly friendly. When she lugged the library doors open to leave, Eddie bounced onto his tiptoes to wave her goodbye.

It was illegal how cute he was when he thought no one was watching.

Suddenly, he turned and looked up to Richie, who startled out of his dreamy staring. So... maybe he did know someone was watching.

“Okay, Rich, your turn!” Eddie called.

“Don’t you know you’re supposed to whisper in a library?” Richie shouted back, and someone downstairs shushed him. 

They filed into the study, one of the coziest rooms in the library, the lowly lit antique lamps and dark oak desk making for a fairly intimate space. 

Richie scooted in his chair, lounging comfortably as Eddie took a seat across from him.

“So what’s this safety assessment all about, anyway? What to do if somebody gets cum in their eye?” 

“I’m glad we’re both taking this taking this seriously,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “No, it’s to help you out when you’re writing the scenes, and making sure nobody’s boundaries get crossed. …Also I’ll research the semen thing because I’m not actually sure.” He lifted up a little clipboard - the one he’d had since middle school with the faded _Thundercats_ stickers, Richie fondly noted - and cleared his throat. “Since you’re directing and performing in the movie, I’m going to ask you some questions about your sexual limits and basic stuff that you personally are or are not into, so that we can have clear data on what everyone is willing to do. Just answering yes or no is fine.”

If the ground were to open up and swallow Richie, he’d have gratefully leaped in.

“Uhh. What?”

“What? What do you mean, ‘what’, am I not being clear? This is so we can have a better understanding when you write the script. What if you write an idea somebody doesn’t want to do? Check the list. What if you want to try something crazy and you’re not sure who’d be a good fit? Check the list. I’m covering all the bases,” Eddie frowned impatiently. 

“Why don’t we just ask everybody?”

“That’s literally what I’m doing right now, dude. Aren’t you working with a writer we don’t know? What if he writes you into something you’re not comfortable with? I don’t like that. I don’t want anybody being gung-ho just to show off. This just takes off a lot of pressure off people feeling cornered, and everybody’s more relaxed. Can you manage that?”

He straightened the papers on the desk with a tap-tap while Richie slouched in his seat, desperate to look casual while he devised an escape route. Sharing kinks with his longtime crush and roommate with a spreadsheet instead of a pillow between them was not how he’d ever pictured this conversation going.

“Oookay, ask away then, boss.”

Eddie cleared his throat. “All right, then. First one, let’s see… how do you feel about… kissing and french kissing?”

“What am I, a virgin? This seems like kind of a vanilla question for a porno,” Richie raised an eyebrow.

“People might not want to kiss someone they don’t like. Like you said before, this whole thing is a job and we should respect that,” retorted Eddie. “Also do you know how much bacteria is exchanged with one kiss? It’s a lot, Rich. A lot. It should be treated with weight.”

“Yeah I like kissing, obviously,” Richie said snidely, hating this. At the admittance, his heart raced a hundred miles per hour, head spinning even faster. The irony of being so crass that he was dubbed ‘Trashmouth’ and then not even having the guts to say ‘kissing is nice’ without choking did not elude him. Being a secret romantic sucked. 

Eddie checked off some boxes on his spreadsheet then pushed up his shirt’s cuffs so they wouldn’t smear any ink. A glimpse of his wrist was revealed, the tanned skin there not escaping Richie’s watchful eyes. _This must be what therapy is like_ , he thought, _if it were sexy._

“Okay. Handjobs?”

“Right here, right now?! Scandalous, Dr. Kaspbrak! This is a library!”

“And please mention if you’re okay with giving, receiving, or both.”

“Yeah, all of them,” Richie conceded with a grin. 

“Oral?” continued Eddie.

“Is that an offer or a request?”

“This will go _so_ much faster if you could just say yes or no.”

“Yes. I’d go down on somebody, too, sure.” 

“Uhh, just the… just blowjobs? Or are you fine with ass stuff too?”

Richie stuck his tongue between the circle of his finger and thumb, waggling it around at Eddie distastefully, who wrinkled his nose and prudishly looked away to check some more boxes, huffing a little “gross,” under his breath. As awful as this was, he did like making Eddie squirm.

“Anal?”

“Only if you buy me a drink first.”

“Rich, we have to be serious about this.”

“Yes, jackass, I know. We all have standards and mine is a piña colada.”

Eddie laughed at this, then quickly collected himself with a little adjustment to his tie, stern frown painting his face once more. He was trying so hard to be professional, and Richie was trying so hard not to get any more keyed up by the way that suit perfectly accentuated slender shoulders.

To reward him for laughing, Richie added, “And hell yeah I’d do anal. What kinda movie you think we’re making here?”

“Okay,” Eddie said. He hesitated before lifting his eyes and continuing, “...And do you like to give, receive, or both...?”

They stared at each other in dead silence for what felt like a good minute. Richie tasted a twinge of copper in his mouth, realizing that he’d been chewing on the inside of his lip rather aggressively, so he stopped and cleared his throat. This was worse than truth or dare. This was why he never chose truth.

“...Giving. Duh.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, and he felt like Eddie somehow knew. Those darkly lashed doe-eyes scanned Richie’s face before scouring the paper for the next question, instead.

“How about fingering?”

“With these bad boys? No doubt!” Grateful to be free of the last question, he wiggled his fingers in Eddie’s face. He was shooed away with a ballpoint pen.

“Giving or recei—?”

“This is suuuch a dumb follow-up to the last one,” whined Richie. “Obviously if somebody doesn’t like buttsex they’re not gonna want fingers jammed into their ass. Can’t you apply common sense to any of these and save us some time?”

“I really need everything to be explicitly stated,” Eddie argued back, repeatedly and rapidly snapping the back of his pen. _Click-click-click._

“Can you not do that? It’s giving me a headache.”

“Not do what?” _Click-click-click-click._

“God, you’re such a--!” Richie got so annoyed with the infernal sound that he reached across the table and tried to wrestle the pen out of Eddie’s hand, who clutched it dearly and fought to pull Richie’s hands off of his, clicking it the whole time. They struggled for a moment, until Richie finally managed to grab Eddie’s exposed wrist and slam their hands together against the surface of the desk. The pen was freed and rolled away from the flattened palm until it clattered to the floor.

The two men were leaned across the table, eyes locked in a glare while they caught their breath from the exertion.

“ _Both_ ,” Richie hissed, then let go and settled back into his chair. He wasn’t sure why he answered honestly. He tensed the hand that had been gripping Eddie’s, trying to cool down and ignore the phantom feeling of that lithe wrist against his skin.

“Oh,” Eddie blinked. He retrieved his pen from the ground, then adjusted his jacket without ever looking back across the table.

“What? What’s ‘oh’?”

“Nothing. Okay, next one…” Eddie swallowed and peered at his list. They carried on and with every question, Richie found himself growing hotter under the collar and more difficult to get a straight answer out of. He turned to more explicit jokes, raunchier and louder and more exaggerated. If Eddie wanted TMI, he’d get TMI.

But joking didn’t do much to distract from the trash fire that consumed Richie’s mind as he scrambled to relax. Despite the interview being totally sterile and read from a spreadsheet for god’s sake, with every “double penetration?” or “how do you feel about snowballing?” or “would you let someone sit on your face?” that came out of Eddie’s mouth, Richie’s imagination - and therefore the heat in his pants - flared until he was leaning on the table to hide himself.

For all the secrets he was supposed to be indulging, getting unreasonably hard from Eddie just saying some sex-related words was not one he wanted revealed.

“All right, good. That’s the sex act list, on to the last part. It’s sort of open-ended so it’s okay if you need to think,” Eddie rested the clipboard on the table, cheeks having become flushed about halfway through Richie’s boisterous answers. He read from the bottom of the page, “‘Are there any specific kinks, fetishes, or skills you have that you wish to utilize or that we could take advantage of to improve the film?’ Or, that you could take advantage of, I guess, since you’re the mastermind.”

“Oooh, essay question I see. Sure, whatever, everything, I guess.”

Eddie laughed. “Are you so dense you can’t even manage to narrow anything down? Come on Richie. Or what? Are you embarrassed because you’re into feet?”

Eddie gave his foot a playful tap under the table. Richie’s stomach dropped.

“Har-har, asshole. What do you want me to say? Short skirts are sexy? I said my piece. Are we done?”

“Okay. _No... kinks..._ ” the suited man read aloud as he made a note in the space and clasped his hands together. “Very vanilla, Trashmouth. Even my list was longer.”

He retrieved a manila folder from a little box beside him; it was thin with a few colorful post-it notes sticking out of the top, then pushed the folder across the table.

“What is this?” Richie asked, taking it.

“It’s my list. Fair’s fair, for making you sit through all of that.”

Richie looked at the folder like it was a holy text. All the answers to his lifetime of daydreamed questions were laid out here: in a tidy list with neat little check boxes, drafted by the subject of his horny affections to boot.

“Thanks, Eddie,” he said coolly. “Hey, are fetishes hereditary? Will I be able to figure out what your mom was into by reading this?”

“Gross dude! I don’t want to think about that!! And anyway, everyone else’s are there too. It’s in alphabetical order, so try not to mix it up too much when you pass it along to the writer. I’m assuming you know the alphabet?”

Richie gave him a little smack on the side of the head with the folder to mess up his immaculately styled hair. “Yeah, isn’t that the one that goes ‘1, 2, 3?’”

They laughed with each other across the table, then fell into an awkward silence when no conversation followed.

“Okay, well, that’s all, Rich,” Eddie glanced at the door.

“Cool. Thanks.” They both continued to sit, nodding uncomfortably.

“No, thank you, man, I’m glad we got that done… Uh. You’re all good. You can go, now.”

“I was actually thinking _you_ could go,” Richie tried, remaining bound to his seat until he could relax enough for the tent in his pants to subside. “I gotta... go over these papers and I don’t think the lovely patrons outside would appreciate me reading about scat in public.”

“Oh, okay, sure, that makes sense,” swallowed Eddie, finding sudden interest in the swirls of the oak desk. 

“So I’ll see you at home,” Richie affirmed.

“Yeah, see you,” Eddie smiled uncomfortably. He was in the middle of sliding his chair back reluctantly when Richie caught the glance of something in his peripheral.

Out the little glass window of the study, he spotted a small man with greying hair weaving through the desks in the main room of the library. He was engaging Mike, who gestured boisterously after they shook each other’s hands.

“Oh heyyy!” Richie exclaimed gleefully, pointing. “There he is! That’s our writer, Eds!”

But when he looked back, the seat across from him was empty and he barely caught a glance at Eddie’s backside as he dashed out of the room and the study door clicked shut.

\--------------------------

“And the meeting of the pornstars commences!” 

Everyone loudly shushed Richie, tequila shot nearly spilling out of his hand as Eddie and Beverly simultaneously pulled him back into his seat and covered his mouth. Their little round table was placed privately off to the side of the restaurant, waiters sauntering past without noticing their R-rated conversation. 

They’d all gathered after a mass text from Eddie, who demanded they have a meal to get to know each other before they started filming. This translated to everyone shuffling into Eddie’s favorite Chinese place, where they all shook hands, made their introductions, and winced through awkward jokes about seeing each other naked later. Richie was thrilled to see so many streams crossing, the hilarity of everyone trying to figure out how to break the ice so cringe-worthy he wished he’d filmed that instead. 

“Okay, okay,” laughed Richie, scrambling out of his friends’ grip to stand again. “How am I supposed to say ‘Thank you for agreeing to bone down on recorded and widely-distributed film for me, everyone’ and mean it if I’m being censored? We’re not on network television, assholes! I can say things like ‘boner’ and ‘pussy’ if I want!” 

“Woah, beep beep, Richie!” Bill chimed, laughing despite himself. Successfully subdued, Richie threw back his shot, then waggled his fingers at him tauntingly.

Bill Denbrough was the latest and final addition to the cast, meeting most of the group for the first time tonight along with Beverly. Seated between the redhead and Mike, he looked like a whisper of a person - short and slender, but deeply captivating with his piercing blue eyes and dulcet voice.

“Where did you say you two met, again?” asked Eddie, absorbed in the familiarity of Bill and Richie’s exchange.

“Oh, it was online through casual encoun--” began Bill.

“Missed connections,” Richie interrupted loudly.

“Like on Craigslist?” Eddie said.

“Craigslist dot org, the one and only. I was just perusing missed connections, as one does,” Richie took a swig of his drink, during which Mike repeated an agreement of ‘as one does,’ before continuing, “Found a crazy post that was so weirdly hot and impossible it had to be fake, and I was like ‘Wow, this person has talent.’ So I wrote back to the OP pretending like I was the lost connection, and then this guy felt so sorry for me that he explained he was an author just flexing his sexy creative writing on us downtrodden lame-o’s trying to find some romance in the world. Hadn’t thought anyone would answer the made-up scenario.”

“If that were a true story, I’d have thought you were a crazy person,” chuckled Bill.

“ _Then he thought I was a crazy person!_ So I hired him because that kind of story was exactly the kind of writing I wanted for our steamy scenes.”

“It was a regular ad,” Bill diffused the elaborate tale with a roll of his eyes. “Actually a very professional call for a writer willing to work with him on an erotic script with a super short turnaround time. ...I guess it sounds a little crazy, no matter what.”

“And during Christmas!? Such a loser, Bill,” grinned Richie, using his chopsticks to fight with Bev over a dumpling. 

Mike snickered after a bite of chow mein, murmuring, “If that applies to our new friend, it applies to all of us. Funny that no one had anything better to do over the holidays than meet a bunch of strangers and make a movie.”

“Call it what it is, Mike,” huffed Bill, hiding his eyes shyly behind his hands. 

“Yeah! Porn!” Richie hooted. “Playboy mansion who?”

They all ducked their heads, embarrassed, except for Beverly and Richie, who smashed their beverages together and threw back a gulp in unison.

“And call us what we are,” Eddie painfully swallowed a mouthful of wine, like he was trying to drown any shyness. “Poor losers who have nothing better to do than each other. We won’t be strangers for long.”

Bill nudged Eddie’s glass with his own from across the table, shrugging, “Not a bad looking bunch to get mixed up with, if you ask me.” 

Eddie ears went a little pink. Richie raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was the alcohol making his table neighbor more susceptible to compliments or if it was Bill’s charming smile. Either way, Eddie suddenly remembering something as he raised a glass for the beginning of a toast, swiveling in his seat instead. Richie had been so caught up in watching Eddie watch everyone else that he dropped his dumpling when the pair of chopsticks jabbed at his shoulder.

“Ow! What the fuck, Eddie!”

“Richie! Get your shit together, we can’t make a toast without our producer present.”

“Oh, right!” Richie fished his phone out of his jeans while the others leaned forward curiously, watching him dial. He placed it in the center of the table, then said in a quick, hushed voice while it rang on speaker, “We’re calling the guy who gave me money to pay all of you bitches ‘cuz I’m flat broke but he still believes in us, for some reason. He actually has a family so he couldn’t make it out, but rest assured that despite being happily married, he’s the least cool of us all. His name’s Stan and he’s a total square, so if we could all say thanks then make him feel real embarrassed, that’d be great.”

Another ring, a click and then, “Hello?”

“Stan the Man!” Richie exclaimed, everyone else waiting quietly as if expecting some kind of cue on what to say and when to say it. “What’s up, geezer?”

“I was just about to finish a puzzle with my wife when you called.”

Beverly slapped a hand over her mouth to resist giggling as Richie gestured broadly at the phone as if to silently scream ‘DO YOU SEE WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT,’ gleeful that Stan had confirmed everything he’d just said in a single sentence. He had always been efficient.

“Oh, cool man, what’s on it this time?”

“Ducks.”

“ _Dicks?_ ”

“DUCKS, you idiot. Did you need something or do you just get off on harassing me?” Stan asked, already tired of Richie’s teasing.

Richie clung to the phone like it might stop him from being hung up on. “Stanley! We’re about to get off, and it’s all thanks to you. Listen, I’ve got the whole porno - err, arthouse, erotica, whatever-the-hell-I-said-before - the whole movie crew right here in this very room with me! I know you couldn’t make it but we are really doing this, dude. Everybody say thanks to your sugar daddy!”

“Thanks, sugar daddy!” the others chimed in unison, though Eddie and Mike were overcome by grimaced laughter instead. The rest threw in their own overlapping calls of “Wish you were here!”, “Tell your wife we say hello!”, “I like ducks, too!”, and “We’ll be sure to send you your producer’s copies ASAP!”

There was an uncomfortable sputtering from Stan’s side of the phone, like he didn’t know what to say whether from embarrassment or just confusion.

“Richie, I - you really didn’t need to call about - uh. Please don’t send me the movie when it’s done, I’m begging you.”

“Stan, shh!! While we have you on the line, Eddie’s going to do a toast! Oh, and get a drink if you can - it’s not the same without you, buddy,” Richie interrupted, then looked proudly to his roommate with a raised glass. 

Eddie relaxed his grin, standing to meet the eyes of faces both familiar and new. He got nervous, cheated and took a sip of his wine to gather himself, then carried on after a big thumbs up from Richie.

“I wanted to say something since Richie never lets me get a word in, as usual. It’s pretty fucking nuts to have a bunch of people I love and a bunch of people I’ve never seen before in my life come together to, uh, _come_ together--” (Richie’s mouth dropped and his fists shot into the air triumphantly, silently cheering at the pun) “-- and help us out, especially at such a hectic time of year when you could all be with the people you really love. But I hope we can all walk away from this holiday with something more important than love: money for next month’s rent. It means a lot, guys. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and in the words of our eloquent director, Richard ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier: Thank you for agreeing to bone down on film with us,” Eddie pursed his lips together with a stern nod, and Richie grinned when he shook a determined fist like he was a coach rooting for his middle-grade softball team. He tossed the last gulp of his wine back and exclaimed wildly, “Let’s take our shirts off and kiss!”

They cheered, downing their drinks along with Eddie as he slumped back into his seat, bewildered, “This is... going to be a ride, isn’t it?”

“We’re with you, man. We’re all strapped in,” Ben rested an assuring hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“And soon we’re gonna be strapped _on!_ Woooo!” Richie cupped a hand around his mouth and pounded the table with a fist to drum up a response. 

Their drunken laughter melted into exuberant conversation that carried well into the night.

\--------------------

Speckles of dust danced across cool beams of morning light, filtered through the frosted windows that flanked the hall to Derry High School’s basement. The illuminated path saw much disuse, layers of dirt and sewage stains from harsh winters impossible to dodge, despite Eddie’s best efforts.

“The dust buildup in here is disgusting,” he whispered, an exaggerated sniffle driving home his point. “Oh my god - is that black mold?? No. No way. That is so dangerous. I swear, Richie, if I leave here with real respiratory problems, I’m suing you.”

“I think that’s just gum, man,” Richie reached out to touch the black speckling that ran along the windowsill, much to Eddie’s disgust. “I told you that you’d hate this. Don’t you have worse things to worry about? Like getting arrested for trespassing? I can not see you handling prison well. Orange is not your color.”

“I wouldn’t get arrested if I told the police that you kidnapped me and forced me into a sex cult--”

“Well, when I’m defending myself in court because we don’t have money for lawyers, I’m gonna show the cops your huuuuge dildo collection and then absolutely no one will believe you’re Mr. Innocent.”

“I do not have a dildo collection—!!” Eddie squeaked, then added as an aside to the redhead who lead the way, “I do not have a dildo collection.”

“Do either of you have an off switch?” interjected Beverly, stopping to raise an eyebrow at them over her knit scarf. Eddie crashed into her, immediately sandwiched by Richie, and they all toppled forward together. 

“No,” Richie said, biting his tongue for a good five seconds before he blurted, “ _And neither do Eddie’s dildos!_ ”

“Fuck you, Richie!!”

Bev glared, and the two apologized in unison then shuffled along silently behind her. 

The three, plus Bill at the rear, were carrying out a mission to unearth some lost artifacts. Back at the library, Ben had mourned the inaccessible stock of old theatre costumes that were stored and forgotten beneath the high school after Derry had its theatre program cut in the late 90’s, or so he’d read in some archives. It would have been a handy resource, considering Bill and Richie had decided to make their story set in a college: the ultimate, wild school fantasy that none of them ever got to live out. But Beverly used to break into the basement all the time to smoke with her friends, and knew the area well - it wasn’t inaccessible at all. With school closed for the holidays and Beverly’s persuasion to join in trespassing and theft, they had hopped the fence and watched in awe as she effortlessly picked a lock with her hair pins.

Richie was absolutely thrilled to get involved in some break-in shenanigans; the whole idea of stealing something from the high school felt a bit symbolic. Bill volunteered to join him, only for Eddie to insist that he should also come along, despite the deep worry that knit across his brow when Richie suggested they already had enough hands, and warned about the mildew.

But he’d persisted, so Richie indulged in watching him squirm the entire dusty way.

“Crazy that Ben knew about this without ever having been down here,” mused Beverly quietly, still wary of the chance of being caught. 

“He’s like that. Total history nerd, but it comes in handy sometimes,” said Richie, then sneezed, sneezed, and sneezed again. The first two were real, but on the last he leaned over Eddie’s shoulder and let it fly right near his cheek. A loud tussel followed, ending only when Bill and Beverly managed to drag Eddie off of Richie and cover his mouth to keep from any more ‘fuck you!’s filling the quiet morning.

“Is this what it’s like to be a father?” Bill chuckled as they proceeded.

“Aw, no kids, Billiam? I’m a little surprised - you strike me as the dad type,” observed Richie, transitioning into the accent of a sweet southern belle, “Friendly, reliable man… but with such a - _sigh!_ \- big heart!”

“Not quite my speed. Kids running around stresses me out, like, a lot.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about any accidental pregnancies for this job,” he joked, and Eddie blanched, shuffling forward to bump past Richie.

“That’s so distasteful, dude. Seriously. Hey Bev, how far did you say this room was? Richie’s ha-ha funny jokes are starting to give me a migraine,” Eddie said.

While Bev explained, Richie studied Eddie, puzzled. The grumpy little man seemed more high-strung than usual, yet his presence had become withdrawn ever since they’d started on their adventure. He wished he’d loosen up like he’d been last night, but decided to give the guy some space in case he really did have a hangover, falling back to chat with Bill instead.

Eddie glanced briefly at them. Richie hid any concern behind a huge grin, yelping loudly, “Are we there yet?!” right as Bev finished describing the route.

They arrived not long after, dangling light bulbs managing to flicker to life and painting the room in a nostalgic yellow glow. Boxes upon boxes were stacked along wooden walls, where an old-fashioned changing divider blocked what Richie guessed were... more boxes. It wasn’t as creepy as they’d expected and Bev flopped into a corner easily, patting a dusty seat where Bill joined her.

“This stuff is incredible!” Richie exclaimed, picking up an old stage prop of a wooden sun and holding it in front of his face. He proceeded to investigate every prop he could, swinging them this way and that in playful improv for some laughs.

They worked together to sift through the treasures, pulling out ridiculous costumes and trying not to sneeze.

Well into the hour, Eddie’s eyes had become so watery that Richie was starting to feel bad for letting him come along; even if the dust wasn’t that bad, Eddie had a habit of psyching himself out and making it all worse. In the old west box Richie had uncovered he found a pile of silk bandanas, and summoned his roommate over.

“Close your eyes, I got you something,” he said.

“No. What?? Why would I trust you?” Eddie was indignant. “You sprayed your spit all over me, asshole. Don’t come near me.”

“I’m serious, I won’t do anything mean!” Richie laughed. He dipped the cowboy hat he’d donned and said in an accent, “C’mon, I’m yer pardner.”

Eddie gave an exasperated sigh and closed his eyes, so Richie lifted the bandana to tie it around him like a mask, but the cloth against his mouth made him jump and he immediately snapped his eyes open.

“Ew, are you trying to put something in my--!” he began, then saw the fabric.

“Keeps the dust out, right?” 

“Oh, thanks, Rich,” Eddie said, taking it from him instead and folding it in a way that looked infinitely more useful than how Richie had done it, wrapping the little makeshift dust mask over his mouth and nose. 

“Yeehaw! Now you really are a bandit!” Richie grinned and plopped his cowboy hat on Eddie’s head. He looked obscenely cute, and Richie began shuffling through boxes to distract himself.

The group persevered, growing preoccupied from their actual goal of finding story-appropriate costumes in favor of dressing up in whatever outfits they could find; Beverly and Eddie had a gunfight as Zorro and the cowboy while a Robin Hood-cloaked Richie sneakily stole their guns. Bill wrapped a huge collar ruffle around his neck and pretended he was Shakespeare, rating their outfits in an accent like it was a fashion show.

It was only when Eddie emptied a hidden box behind the changing divider and suddenly hopped out in a new outfit that they knew they’d struck gold. 

The varsity jacket was huge, far too big for him with the red and white sleeves billowing past his hands. It was old - very old - the kind of cool vintage find at a trendy thrift store, and the dark-haired man did a little spin to show it off.

“This has gotta be from the 80’s or something, right?”

The others crowded around the collection of discovered boxes. Filled to the brim with painstakingly folded uniforms and other sports wear, it was certain that none of these were costumes - everything in this section were real pieces of Derry High School history.

“This is so rad!” Richie exclaimed, holding up a cheerleader outfit to Beverly. “Perfect fucking fit. I cannot believe it, we have to use these.”

So they each gathered up a box and dashed out of the school, giggling from the thrill and looking over their shoulders for any watchful eyes.

Beverly and Bill took their boxes to the inn, but the other two convened at the library, coolly walking past desks of patrons until they could disappear in the old lounge. The room had been transformed into their working headquarters, papers strewn about where Bill and Richie had been scripting, mics and laptops placed neatly among them.

“Oh my god, we gotta try these on. What is the sluttiest outfit I can fit into here…?” Richie wondered, locking the door so no library visitors might stumble into their fashion show. He dug through the garments, but it was looking bleak for him - even the athletics uniforms were too small against his broad shoulders and gangly frame.

Enveloped in a sudden warmth, Richie found the oversized letterman’s jacket being draped over his shoulders like a chilly damsel might receive a coat from her gentleman date. Had he less self-control, he might have blushed like a damsel, too.

“This jacket will fit,” Eddie said. He circled the newly dressed man, examining him. “That might be the only thing, though. Why are you so huge? Tell me, is it difficult being a descendent of Paul Bunyan?”

“Having to live with people falling faint from the rugged handsomeness can be a curse,” Richie joked, “But I could do without the hairiness.”

“Nothing wrong with a little hair.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re as hairless as a stressed out dog that won’t stop chewing it’s own leg.”

“...Really? Is that how you’re going to be? I was trying to make you feel better, jerk.”

“Okay? So am I. Learn to take a compliment, Eds.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and went back to circling Richie, then noted after some thought, “I think you could just wear the jacket, honestly. With your glasses and the usual clothes underneath, you look like a geek trying to pass as a cool guy, but if I imagine you without your shirt, it works.”

Richie grew sheepish that Eddie was doing any imagining of the sort, and shifted gears to shuffle with his video camera and accessories nearby. He’d just ordered some better microphone parts and wanted to test them out, but was annoyed to find the battery dead. 

“What’s my role again?” Eddie asked.

From over his shoulder, Richie answered, “You’re the twinky nerd guy who seduces the straight jock bully, transforming him and sending him down his slutty, slutty path.”

“Right, right. Okay, ta-da!”

Richie turned, the unworking camera glued to his eye as he surveyed the room through it. Through the lens, he saw Eddie dressed in his typical boring polo, slacks exchanged for a pair of tiny, red, 70’s-style athletic shorts. And god, they were short. 

“Throwback, right?” Eddie grinned.

Squinting through the camera like it was a shield preventing him from looking directly at Eddie, Richie burst into a boisterous laugh.

“Wow, Spaghetti! You look like a sugar daddy about to take me out on his yacht. Very DILF-y of you.”

“What?? ‘DILF-y’? Really?” Eddie looked a little offended, trying to get a better look at his bottom half by hopping in front of a mirror that was anything but full-length. “Do I really look that old? Is it the shirt? I guess I am old.”

Richie let free the exhale that had caught in his throat, camera dropping along with his eyes as he allowed himself to take one long, greedy look at the man before him. With every jump, the strong muscles of Eddie’s thighs tensed, his tugged-up socks accentuating the curve of his calves. Day after day of thick wool coats and flannel followed by night after night of sleeping in jackets and double-layered sweats to keep warm meant the most bare skin Richie had seen on Eddie in weeks was the morning when their water shut off. Thirsting after his barely exposed wrists in the study the day before had been frustrating enough, and now his bare legs had Richie so revved up that Eddie may as well have been naked.

Is this what withdrawal is like? Richie thought, too swept up in the way Eddie’s hips twisted to notice how breathless he’d become.

“Maybe it’s too much,” Eddie considered, turning once more. Richie’s eyes shot up to his face, guiltily having been caught looking. But then he was granted permission when Eddie asked, “I don’t know, what do you think? Is it stupid?”

“No, yeah, it’s perfect, Eds,” Richie nodded, disappearing behind his unusable camera again. “I think you found your look. Why don’t you try standing over there? I need to do a lighting test, anyway, and we can see how it looks on video.”

Obliging, Eddie hopped up on a desk near the windowsill specified, lounging across it like he was in an old painting.

“Film me like one of your French girls,” he batted his eyelashes and Richie played along, diving around with his camera at different angles.

“Yeah baby, yeah!!” he hooted in his best Austin Powers voice, and Eddie struck a few dramatic poses through stifled chuckles. “Oh, Edward, _behave!_ Oh - wait, for real, stay just like that.”

Eddie complied, relaxing with a knee up so the light caught the folds of his shorts just right. He looked at ease, perfectly illuminated through the window’s filtered midday sun, and Richie boldly let his view through the camera trail up Eddie’s inner thigh.

“Could you lean back a bit? The shadows on your face are a little dramatic.”

He stretched back, the gentle curve of his back and angle of his bare legs possibly one of the most racy things Richie had ever seen. Had Eddie always been this… graceful? 

If Richie could live in this moment forever, he would. The usually untouchable Eddie was splayed out before him in patient stillness, inviting direction. Dark eyes landed directly on the lens of the bulky camera, meeting the director’s gaze through the device with a spark of something daring... and so Richie dared to touch.

With a murmur of, “Little more,” he brushed two fingertips against the model’s shoulder to gently push him back. The lead was followed and Eddie turned his head, neck exposed. Richie’s mouth went dry as he resisted running his hand along that too. 

“That looks good,” he said, huskier than he’d have liked. He backed away before he became any more emboldened, enthralled by the torturously beautiful sight through the camera. “You look good.”

“Can I see?” Eddie asked, hopping off the table and approaching Richie, who immediately took off across the room to pack up the camera.

“No, it’s… I’ll have to review the footage after I do tests in the other rooms,” he said.

“What? But how am I supposed to know if the shorts look good? That mirror sucks.”

“I told you, they look fine, all right? They look really good. Just - can you not - hey--!” Richie tried to reassure him, but Eddie was reaching around to try and filch the camera from his grasp. Hands were on his waist, then his arm, then fingers wrapped around his grip on the camera and Richie gasped and finally let go, dropping the thing into Eddie’s hold.

“Ha!” came the victory call, and the brunette shuffled away with the camera while Richie’s cheeks burned hot from the inevitable. “...Hey, how do you turn this on? It’s not working.”

“The huge button that says ‘ON’.”

“Hmmm,” Eddie examined the machine like he was a cat curiously pawing at its prey, until he furrowed his brow worriedly. “I think your camera is broken, dude.”

“This is why Mike is helping film. It was just working fine,” came the lie, and Richie strolled over to take it back. “Maybe the battery just died while you were knocking it around. This is what happens when you roughhouse with delicate things, Eddie!”

Eddie apologized, and Richie assured him he’d just do a Radio Shack run later so everything was ready to go for filming. The day after tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and they intended to utilize the brief closure of the library over those two days to get all their raunchy scenes done; it was a tight schedule, but now they had costumes and Bill and Richie were doing a deep dive into their script. They’d even begun decorating the sections of the library that they intended to use - as least as much as Mike could allow before close - and everything was prepared.

Everything except for Richie, who was wound so tight without any nights alone that even a glimpse at Eddie’s ankle was enough get his blood pumping. He had no idea how he was supposed to manage the next few days, especially with the fresh reality of those little shorts on slender runner’s legs. That, and he still couldn’t bring himself to look at The Holy List that he’d been given in that manila folder, the prospect of reading about Eddie’s every fantasy making Richie’s brain short circuit. He couldn’t stop running his thumb over the fingers where he had grazed that firm shoulder. Was he really that touch-starved?

Richie bid Eddie goodbye, promising that he’d keep the laptop charged so they could watch the next _Gilmore Girls_ episode tonight, side-by-side in bed.

Eddie departed the room, back in pants and thick boots and a weighty coat with the little red shorts tucked beneath his arm. He waved, “Cool, can’t wait! See you after work, Rich.”

Richie flopped into a chair, groaning deeply. He needed some space, or a lay, and he needed it badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when will the UST end ... even i’m suffering smh  
> btw before richie interrupts him, bill was referencing the casual encounters section of craigslist which no longer exists and used to be a place to hook up, for anyone who may need context..!  
> thank you for reading!


	6. stuck with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my friend who came up with the name and plot of their porno. thank u, what would i do w/o you??  
> noting again that only reddie gets explicit scenes, the for the other losers it's all just implied!

Eddie had been alone all day.

Last night, Richie had stumbled into the apartment late - so late in the AM that Eddie was already dozing - exhausted and a little tipsy after working on the script with Bill at the library. He claimed it had been harder to do under the tight deadline than they expected, but everything was done. Then he’d flopped onto the sofa and passed out, so Eddie buried him in blankets and took the bed, shivering alone.

He woke up early and reinflated the tires on the bike; they’d been looking pretty limp and he worried that when Richie took it to work he might lose some traction.

Ben had suddenly gone MIA, as had Beverly, but he’d overheard that she was having issues with her shower at the inn and having no luck getting management to fix it, so he stomped over there and bullied the receptionist and staff until they set Beverly up in a functional suite. Eddie pocketed the new key to deliver to her later, glaring at the staff on his way out with a snide, “ _Thank you_ for managing to do your job.”

Mike was rushing around at the library, stressed before closing for the holiday, and Eddie knew to stay out of his hair - the librarian’s neuroticism spiked during times like this and trying to speak with him only added to the pressure. He opted instead to leave a hearty egg croissant and peppermint mocha on the desk.

Eddie spent the rest of the morning cooking a huge dinner at Mike’s apartment for the whole crew to eat later, following up with an exhaustive afternoon shift at the cafe. He was on his best behavior, all sweet smiles and giggles at patrons’ jokes, and for it he pocketed some holiday sizeable tips. Dropping them into his personal savings box that he kept stored in the backroom, Eddie shook the container, satisfied by the weight of it. Next stop: the bank.

This routine wasn’t anything odd. The last week, especially as more of their cast filtered into town, had become busier and busier and Eddie found himself at the center of it all. Richie was occupied being so clever and getting the show together that he would forget about the little things they needed, like a new lightbulb or the curtains in the lounge that needed to be strung up differently. Naturally a particular person, Eddie made these adjustments on his downtime, grateful to busy his mind with _something_ lest it wander to phantom memories of his roommate’s strong hand grappled around his wrist.

Now, with his little box in tow, he had one last thing to do for Richie, as a Christmas gift. The cash tips that he’d been saving for months from the cafe were dedicated to getting their utilities paid off. It wasn’t nearly enough to cover their rent or even next month’s bills, but it was enough to prevent them from getting frostbite in the tundra of their apartment, and he gleefully left the bank with funds deposited and a weight off his shoulders. By this time tomorrow, they’d be blasting the heater and watching Rory Gilmore make bad decisions on their own television.

Managing to fit in a shower at the gym, Eddie finally sat down for a coffee at a local diner to get started on next semester’s reading. He was trying to douse the anxiety about having to see the score from his final posted online, soon. He’d been so swept up in Richie’s enthusiastic endeavors that he’d nearly forgotten he was a regular old student with a winter break that was going to end after the new year. 

It was a little absurd when he considered the route their lives had suddenly taken, and stranger still was envisioning what their lives would look like once it was all over.

Richie had made friends. _Eddie_ had made friends. They hadn’t yet had sex with those friends, but they were about to, and he wondered statistically how likely it was that people stayed friends after casual hook ups, especially at their age. Would they come and go without a second thought?

His stomach churned at the prospect that this might apply to him and Richie, too, but with deeper complications. Worries avalanched through his mind, and he lost himself to thought.

If anything was absurd, it was the tension that had been blossoming between the roommates, no thanks to Eddie’s persistence if he was being honest with himself. Would things change? Would Eddie be able to perform sufficiently? Would Richie be impressed? Everything already felt different after the way that Richie had filmed him in that back room, video camera pressed up against his face and jaw tense. He’d been so… focused. 

Eddie couldn’t shake the prickle of heat in the pit of his stomach, remembering the way he had relished in being seen; even with the camera between them, masking whatever Richie was thinking, he couldn’t recall the last time someone _looked_ at him like that… or the first time, and it made him feel strong to be sought after.

There was something about being shoulder-to-shoulder in bed every night with the laptop balanced on their thighs, huddled in small rooms discussing sex with new friends, laughing over goofy ideas and sharing drinks with blankets draped over them that drove him to try and draw Richie closer than ever before. Things had a different context, lately. He felt freer, a little wild, and it all mixed up in a confusing but liberated horniness. 

A liberated horniness that spiked when something as simple as an interview with Richie made his blood run hot and pants tight. No one else’s one-on-one meeting had him fighting an erection, but then, he justified, no one else made him work as hard to wrangle an answer. His heart skipped as he tried to forget the racy images that had zoomed through his head during their conversation; his roommate all twisted up in his sheets, just a hallway’s walk from Eddie, big fingers slipping inside himself to ravenously drag out a low moan—

Frowning, Eddie shakily gulped down his coffee and read his book again with acute focus. The words glazed over after a minute. 

With the advent of filming tomorrow, he found himself looking forward to having a place to let loose all his pent-up frustration; for once, the unpredictable wasn’t scaring him and he _wanted_ so many new things out of it. He wanted to try things on his List that he’d never done before, to hang onto all the warm feelings that came with that excitement. To look forward to making something when he got home from work. To encourage Richie to keep unabashedly being creative. To get Richie to look as fondly at him the way he looked so fondly at Bill.

He’d noticed it right away, their familiarity. They said things that sounded like inside jokes and in the basement of Derry High, Richie had drifted close to Bill in quiet moments where they would murmur and smile together. It was different than Richie’s fascination with the other newcomer, Bev: he was still experimenting with her, figuring out what made her laugh the hardest, what annoyed her the most. But he already had all of that down with Bill.

Eddie considered that it was probably just the script - they were the writers and had been spending time working together alone, after all… but since Bill wasn’t starring in the movie, Eddie never got a chance to interview him like the others and he had less of a grasp on who he was aside from being firm, a bit soft spoken, and admittedly kind of pretty.

Annoyed by his own haphazard, scattered thoughts rapidly layering up and blanketing some important revelation that he couldn’t quite pin down, he wistfully sighed and tried to focus on the shifting of the misting rain outside. He hadn’t worn his galoshes, and the prospect of the long walk to Richie’s bartending job in lace-up boots was unappealing. If only they had the time and money to free their car from being impounded, he could have been chauffeuring everyone around town and stayed dry doing it.

A chime of a bell outside and he jolted from his frantic thoughts. Across the street, Bill stood in a raincoat, leg kicked up on Eddie’s old bicycle with its freshly inflated tires, waving at him rapidly. Eddie gave an awkward wave back. Bill gestured for him to come outside, and held up something yellow. He’d brought a second raincoat.

“How did you know where I was?” Eddie asked, legs slung over the back of the bike as his hands gripped Bill’s shoulders tightly. The man felt sturdier than he looked, and Eddie found himself feeling fully secure behind Bill even as the rain pattered gently over them, slicking the roads dangerously. Compared to Richie’s playful swerving, his new driver was steady and confident.

“I didn’t,” Bill answered, “But I was on my way to Richie’s work and saw you looking a bit poetic at the diner. We’ve all been there. Sorry the coat’s kind of big, by the way - it was for Rich, but seems like you needed it more.”

Eddie gave a little grunt, a weird jealousy swiveling around his heart at the thought that both he and Bill were planning to pick Richie up from work.

“That’s considerate. I see Richie lent you my bike, too.”

“He’s sweet deep down, huh?”

They rode on in silence for awhile longer, Eddie wiping the rain out of his face as it started to come down a little harder. Bill started to struggle more and he signaled that he was pulling over, bringing them to shelter under an overhang that jutted from the back of a bustling restaurant.

It was good timing; the sky grew dark and a stormburst rolled in, thick droplets of rain beating down on the rooftops, barely masking the distant clinking of dishes and rowdy chatter from inside the eatery. The ambiance was stark against the pair’s silence, and even the warm light from the open kitchen door contrasted sharply against the fog in illuminated puddles. Eddie tightened his scarf awkwardly.

“...You want to know something really crazy?” Bill asked after some pause. He was watching the rolling clouds, too. “This is my bike.”

“You mean _my_ bike,” frowned Eddie. 

“Yeah, well, sort of. It was my b-bike before that, when I was a kid.” He lifted a boot and gestured to the crude engraving of ‘SILVER’ that lined the side ever since Richie and Eddie pooled their money to buy it at the second-hand store. “ _Hi-ho silver!_ ’ It’s what I would say when I rode it.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ What? That _is_ crazy!” Eddie’s eyes widened as he connected the dots. “What are the chances… I remember me ‘n’ Rich lost our entire minds when we saw this thing in the shop, it was such a prize. So you’re a Derry local, too? Were you homeschooled like Mike?” 

“No, we lost my little b-b-brother when I was really young, it was rough on everyone and… you know, just had to g-go,” he replied, fondly admiring the bike rather than meet Eddie’s eyes as a stutter tiptoed on the edge of his words. 

“...I’m sorry. That’s horrible,” Eddie said softly, earnestly. “God, I’m sorry we made you come back for some sleazy bullshit like this, I hope it didn’t dredge anything up.”

“D-don’t worry,” Bill replied with a genuine smile. “It’s fine. Anyway, I visit Derry periodically, I like being here sometimes. There’s good, interesting things between all the shit, if you look close enough. Like some middle-aged men trying to make it in the porn industry.”

“Well, no promise that we’ll ever do something as interesting as this when we get back to our regularly scheduled programming,” Eddie chuckled. Bill seemed confused, raising an eyebrow.

“Why? You two are so creative. And you get stuff done.”

“Hmm… not me,” denied Eddie, disappearing into the depths of his scarf to warm his nose. He reflected on his unfocused attempt at studying that afternoon and sighed. “Why do you think Richie’s making this movie about college? It’s a big jab - I’m the permanent super senior. Three time almost-grad… pharmaceuticals, statistics, business… no degree.”

“Oh, you like all those things?” Bill prodded further, receiving a shrug from Eddie. He did, sort of - or at least, he thought about them a lot whether he enjoyed it or not. But how much they were Eddie’s personal interests or a paranoia ingrained into him since he was a child, he wasn’t sure. His entire life had been plagued by the not-knowing of where his self began, and where ended the Eddie-shaped frame someone else had carved out for him to neatly sit in.

“I just have trouble seeing things through, knowing what to do next,” he admitted. “It’s overwhelming, I can’t do it. A business degree seems vague enough that I can figure out _something_ to apply it to.”

“You strike me as the type to always have a plan. I saw those spreadsheets.”

“Ugh… I don’t know,” Eddie sighed, squeezing his eyes together as he felt a headache coming on from thinking too hard about his life today. “I don’t know what’s best, like, ever. I either go too far or fall too short. It’d be easier if someone else made a plan for me.” 

“There’s no point in holding back, you should just do what _you_ like,” Bill dug into his jacket and passed a ziplock bag with painkillers in it to Eddie. He gratefully took two. “But that’s probably unnecessary advice. It seems like you already are.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know… doing what you want. Collaborating with Richie on something so crazy, taking care of everybody. You’re making a whole movie on an insane deadline, and so far it’s coming together and there’s a lot of heart in it. You seem like somebody who likes to have fun with people, and this project is that, right?”

“Don’t flatter me,” Eddie rolled his eyes. The last time someone had described him as ‘fun’, it was Richie calling him ‘fun-sized’. “We haven’t even started filming; this whole thing might be a complete flop, and honestly chances of failure are high. Trust me, I took statistics.”

They chuckled together, and as Eddie’s mood lightened so did the rain. When it was a mere drizzle they resumed their trip, clambering back on the bike together and zooming down the street. As they took off, Bill glanced back at Eddie and said seriously, “I look forward to seeing what you do, Eddie, when you figure out exactly what it is you want.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

The rain fully stopped as they careened down a hill, a holler from Bill rippling through the silence. Eddie tugged his hood off, letting the wind blow his hair this way and that and joined him. 

Richie was impressed by the state of Eddie’s damp hair, all windswept and ruined from the weather, teasing both he and Bill relentlessly for looking like frazzled birds. They nearly abandoned him at the bar after that, claiming that since they only had one extra raincoat and one bike it would be efficient anyway.

Dissuaded from starting their walk by the rain having picked up again, this time with a frost at the edge of it, the three waited at the window. Judging by the chill in the air, the apartment’s temperature tonight was going to be _awful_ and Eddie wished his funds would transfer faster, but maybe Richie would manage to make it to bed this time. Aside from the general comfort of being tucked in together, the man was a walking furnace and when he’d taken the sofa last night it had been miserable trying to get to sleep alone.

A honk startled the three of them out of their dreariness, and they heard Beverly shouting at them. 

Their little Volvo - peeling paint, broken trunk, and all - puttered up with the redhead sticking her face out the passenger’s window.

“Beverly Marsh!” exclaimed Richie. “What the _fuck?!”_

He stowed the bicycle inside the bar then raced out with the other two in tow, not even caring that the rain was coming down on them as they piled into the backseat, sandwiching Bill in the center.

“You guys, what is this?” Eddie slicked his wet hair out of his eyes and stared around the car incredulously, not forgetting to buckle his seatbelt despite the excitement. “Where did this come from? How the fuck is the car even working?”

“Long time no see!” Beverly grinned back at them, flicking the _Streetfighter_ charm of Ryu that dangled from the rear-view mirror. Ben was driving, both of them streaked with oil and dirt on their faces and hands, hair wet and stringy from the rain.

“ _Wow_ , you guys look like complete shit. What happened to you?” Richie said.

“So this is the thanks we get,” scoffed Ben.

“Turns out Ben here knows as much about cars as me, and had just as little to do this morning. So we put our heads together and got her kicking again. We were really sick of you guys trying to get everywhere on that bike and making us walk,” Beverly explained as they pulled into the library driveway. She nodded to Richie, “Also it was _not_ easy getting this thing out of impound. If anybody asks, I’m your cousin.”

“You did this all yourselves?” Eddie asked, trying to take it all in. He glanced across the seat at Richie, who’s slack-jawed awe was accented by a shame that matched Eddie’s. Between Stan’s loan and Mike’s apartment, he’d been feeling like they had been leeching off the good will of their friends. Now to have someone who was just a stranger one week ago help save their towed car and even go so far as to repair it by hand… Eddie was overwhelmed, and a little guilty. “Jeez, guys, thank you, I…we--”

“Please! You don’t have to say anything,” Ben interrupted Eddie, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “You’ve been doing a lot for us, Eds. I haven’t had this much fun during Christmas in a long time. Anyway, Mike tells me we’re having your famous lasagna tonight? That’s about all I could ask for.”

“Thank you both,” Richie said, still stunned.

They pulled into the library parking lot. Once stopped, Richie kicked open his door and gave Beverly a huge hug, which Eddie matched with Ben until they could exchange subjects. 

The gang poured into the library, Mike harshly whispering at them to wipe their boots before they muddied the whole place. Eddie and Richie drowned him out with exuberant exclamations about the car until someone in the quiet section shouted at them to shut up.

The crew collected in the cozy study, each gifted a stapled script from Bill and a plate of lasagna that Mike had brought from the apartment.

With the fervor of a true storyteller, Bill pitched the story, enrapturing everyone immediately as he wove the sexual predicaments of two football stars failing their college courses and trying to get by, and off, with a little help from their friends.

“...And that, my friends, is _Summa Cum Lads_!” the writer exclaimed.

Richie added dramatically, “Tagline: ‘ _His grades aren’t the ONLY thing he’s keeping up!_ ’ Eddie delivered everyone’s costumes yesterday, so take a look at your scenes, and with this all wrapped… we’re ready to start!”

“This is really good,” Bev said as she examined the pages, leaning over to show a line to Ben. “Wow. You can do this?”

He gave a nonchalant little shrug, “Yeah, actually. I mean, I guess you’ll see when we get to it.”

She snickered and Richie peered over their shoulders. “Oh yeah. Ben’s a total freak. The cheersome is gonna be _sick_.”

“ _Cheersome?_ ” Mike lifted a brow, still making his way through the pages. 

“Yeah, it’s the threesome with the cheerleader, the payoff for all the hard work of the shunned Chad, determined Brad and bored Stacey. The climax!” he pointed at Bev and Ben. “These two hotties plus yours truly.”

Mike gave a low whistle, then asked Eddie, “What do you think of yours?”

Eddie had skipped ahead to his scene already: the one where Chad, played by a jock-ified Richie, hires a nerdy tutor and does more than just study. Here, printed on paper in bold letters and explicit stage direction was the promise that come Christmas, Richie would have his hand wrapped around Eddie’s cock.

Reading as much made his throat feel hot, so he flipped ahead to his next scene to get the image out of his head. After a few page turns and some confused glances at the table of contents, Eddie suddenly realized that he didn’t _have_ another scene.

A triple-check of the opening page confirmed it all:

BEN + MIKE   
( _bondage, blowjob_ )

RICHIE + EDDIE  
_(handjob_ )

RICHIE + BEN  
( _fingering, blowjob_ )

MIKE + BILL  
( _anal: reverse cowboy_ )( _yeehaw!_ )

BEV + BEN  
( _pegging_ )

BEN + RICHIE + BEV  
( _anal, DP, threesome_ )

“Hey, what the hell Richie?” Eddie piped up, flipping rapidly through the paper. “Why do I only have one scene?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No! That’s not what I meant. How come everyone else has at least two scenes except for me?”

“Bill only has one,” Richie pointed out. 

“Yeah, and what’s up with that, anyway? When did you get a character in this?” Eddie scoffed, shaking his script and turning to Bill, who shrugged. “Don’t shrug!! You’re the writer! Look at that, he wrote it and he doesn’t even know why he’s in it!” 

“Sorry Eds, I figured I’d save you the trouble.” Richie waved Eddie aside and they turned away from the group to speak more privately. Mike noticed this, loudly offering beer and some dessert to everyone in the lounge. Bill and Beverly looked concerned after the arguing roommates, but assured by Ben’s nod trailed out too, leaving the duo alone.

“You don’t need to baby me or whatever. I can do this,” Eddie said firmly. 

“I… what? I’m not _babying_ you, all right?” Richie laughed, then added sarcastically, “I _know_ you can fuck, Eddie, I had to do everything I could to drown you out when Myra would come over to the apartment.”

Eddie felt a headache flare and he inhaled deeply, collecting himself. He refused to let them slip into their habit of bringing up old, unrelated wounds for points right now. He borrowed the thing he’d overheard Bill say, as it felt appropriate: “Beep beep, Richie, do _not_ bring her into this; obviously I can manage having sex, that is _not_ what I meant. Why are you being so defensive about this?”

“Because you’re the one getting up in arms about it. Look man, for real - I just thought you didn’t want another scene, okay?” Richie’s tone shifted from guarded to soft, and despite his own frustration, Eddie could sense the sincerity. However, any relief from the misunderstanding immediately dissipated when Richie added, “I wanted to go easy on you.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows, appalled at the statement. You went easy on someone who was weak, someone delicate or sick. His whole life, he had wanted to be none of those things regardless of everyone asserting that he was. He chased safety out of habit, then chastised himself for being predictable in the same swoop. So he’d been trying to be bolder, braver, a little risky, and if his jaunty short-shorts and daring checkboxes on his List hadn’t made that clear, he wasn’t sure what else to do. Maybe this perception of useless, weak Eddie was inescapable, or worse, maybe it was true. How was he supposed to find out if he wasn’t allowed to explore beyond the boundary that someone else wrote for him?

“Go- wh-! Go _easy_ on me? Why? I’m not fragile, Richie!” 

“No, I know, _I know you’re not!_ ” he exasperated, then muttered under his breath, “Your ego on the other hand…”

“You’re being a dick on purpose. I get _one_ handjob and that’s it? Meanwhile, Mike’s being tied up and Ben is getting pegged or whatever and - look, it just doesn’t seem fair,” Eddie huffed, feeling sensitive.

“What do you mean ‘fair’? This isn’t a competition.”

He smacked at the script with the back of his hand like it would better drive his point home. “No? Then why do _you_ have two other scenes on top of ours with Ben and one is a… threesome?! To show off? It seems weird to me that everyone else gets to do crazy stuff like that with other people while _I_ just get stuck with y--...”

There was a sharp pause, Eddie’s frustration still small enough that he managed to catch himself. But Richie caught it too, and any bite he’d had a moment ago melted instead to defeated bitterness.

“...with just lil’ ol’ me,” Richie finished for him. “Okay, Eddie. I’ll talk to Bill and we’ll add you somewhere _exciting_.”

“Rich…” Eddie murmured, losing steam fast. 

He hadn’t meant that. He’d only meant that he wanted to be treated like everyone else, as if he wasn’t any less. And he wanted to explain that, to say that he hadn’t meant to imply that _Richie_ was anything less - no, Richie was everything. But the words caught in his throat because the reality of saying, outloud, that he _really did want_ to have his scene with Richie, more than anything else, somehow seemed far scarier than letting this dreadful tension stew.

“Is that it, then? I gotta go get some new batteries for the camera so… I’ll see you at home. Can you just tell everybody that if they have questions they can call me or ask Bill?”

“Do you - uh, I can come along,” Eddie tried pitifully. He had a discount at the ice cream shop next to the Radio Shack and one of their winter traditions was splitting a cone and pretending it was summer at the beach. Maybe it would ease things, give them a moment to talk. “I heard they have a new holiday flavor at McConnell’s.”

“Ice cream?” Richie spun on his heel and gave him an all-too-big grin. “Spaghetti, please. It’s the middle of winter.”

Eddie’s heart sank and he nodded, trying to joke, “Okay. It’s really icy outside after the rain. Don’t fall on your ass out there again.”

“There’s worse things,” Richie smiled, and Eddie was left alone in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eddie likes to make lasagna bc he identifies w jon arbuckle (richie is garfield)
> 
> rating goes up next chapter!


	7. again, with fervor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating officially bumped up to E 
> 
> yall ready for some embarrassing porn dialogue?

_Green. Hot pink. Black._

_Hot pink? Green._

The contemplative chant repeated in Richie’s head as he looked between the thick silicone toys that lined the shelf before him. His options ran wide (and long, and ribbed, and with or without batteries) and he scratched his stubble in confoundment.

It was one thing to browse a sex shop for himself - even then, he rarely stuck his nose in and more rarely actually left with a purchase - but another to commit to something _for_ somebody else. For as much as he spewed non-stop dirty jokes, the reality of it wasn’t his forte.

That, and he really wasn’t in the mood to be amused by the inherent hilarity of dildos right now. Instead, with every plastic penis his eyes grazed, he was taunted by the panging heartache of Eddie’s furrowed brow, adorable pout, and cutting words.

“It doesn’t matter,” Richie muttered under his breath. “Get it together Richie, he’s not your boyfriend, all right? He doesn’t have to be into you. You can’t be mad at him for that.”

He tried to shake out his anxiety by turning to the more realistic toys, but seeing them in their veiny glory didn’t help and he paced the tiny room, grateful that the youthful cashier was too distracted by cellphone solitaire to notice his spiraling.

“Just because _you’re_ sad doesn’t mean _he’s_ responsible. He doesn’t want you - that’s okay. That’s okay!” Richie squeezed his eyes shut and finally took a deep breath, agreeing with himself coolly, “That’s okay.”

He’d gotten so good at lying that it was almost alarming that he couldn’t convince himself of this simple mantra. Instead, the pain that Richie was so devoted to curtaining was laid open in the forefront of his mind, gripping the pit of his stomach as he relentlessly replayed Eddie’s words: _And I just get stuck with… you._

Of course. Eddie had been stuck with Richie for years already; it was no wonder he wouldn’t be impressed by the prospect of his same old dumpy roommate when he had a plethora of attractive candidates with no strings attached to experiment with in the porno.

And for as much as that truth hurt, it was easier to wallow in the familiar pain of undesirability than it was to face the fact that Eddie’s initial tantrum about being treated differently than the others had been fully grounded in truth: Richie was guilty as charged.

Even when Bill had come up with a lascivious locker room scene for Eddie’s character involving wet t-shirts, Richie had canned it on the grounds that it didn’t make sense for the story. He and Bill had argued about it for a long time - it _did_ make sense, and Richie knew it, but when he thought of the handsome Ben with those caring, powerful arms wrapped around Eddie while he was kissed and fucked, his heart braided into a revolting envy.

And then, when Bill had tried to incorporate the ideas into Richie’s scene to make up for it they still were rejected, not because Eddie couldn’t handle it, but because _Richie_ couldn’t.

So Eddie had every right to be angry with him. Richie had told him he’d be a lead, and now he was stealing away any adventure for the sake of his own insecurity.

“Stupid, stupid…” Richie grumbled, sick of his constant indecision in both life and this stifling little shop. He grabbed a few dildos and a reliable-looking strap on that were in front of him, making up his mind to just get this over with. Tossing the menagerie onto the counter, he pointed behind the eyeliner’d, droopy-haired cashier.

“Also that rope. And that leather strap thing with the ring,” he said, then considered Ben’s size. “Would that fit a size L guy with a chest like Clark Kent, you think?”

Adding his requests to the pile, the cashier eyed the toys and asked, “...You want some lube with all this?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah definitely, thanks. Do you have any flavored ones? Those are cool, right?”

The cashier laughed and pulled out two bottles. “Are you actually a dad or are you just trying to sound like one?”

“Is being an old guy so bad? Don’t the youths love a silver fox?” Richie held his lower back like he was a grandpa.

The cashier smirked, eyes dancing over Richie shamelessly. “We do.”

Not sure how to deal with the blatant flirting of a handsome 20-something-year-old, Richie just stared down at the table and added after a beat, “This isn’t for me by the way.”

“Oh, okay,” the cashier shrugged, surveying Richie’s chest to see just how Clark Kent-esque it was when he handled the leather straps, then wrung the rest up at an excruciatingly slow pace. “Got a lot of friends, then, I take it?” 

Richie rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, kinda. Long story.”

The cashier pushed out the two bottles of lube as he finished bagging the rest. “You should try before you buy. All honesty, they’re gross - but if you mix apple and peppermint, it tastes exactly like donuts.” He held one of Richie’s hands across the counter and put a droplet from each bottle on a fingertip, then prepared his own and gave his finger a lick. Richie averted his eyes, but followed suit.

Incredibly, the cashier was right.

“What the fuck! Wow, man, that’s a real donut, glazed and all. How’d you figure that out?” he laughed. 

“Boring as hell in here.”

“So you just eat lube for fun?” Richie teased, “Not exactly what I’d call a snack.”

“I could have better,” the cashier grinned at him, and Richie went hot; he really needed to get out of here, so he dug his cash out and finally took his bags.

“Thanks for the help, uhhh...” he said, peering at the cashier’s tag. “...Spike. If that _is_ your real name.”

“It’s not,” Spike replied as he wrote a phone number on the receipt. “Listen, if you wanna make some more friends… mine meet weekly, at my apartment. We’ve got the condoms, but we’ve been missing one cute dad.”

Richie was certain he’d turned bright red as he snatched away the receipt. 

“All right, no thanks, cool, yeah - bye!” Richie mumbled, and powerwalked out the door. 

\--------------

Richie smacked at his already-wind-blistered cheeks, still trying to shake off the thrill of having someone openly desire him - even if it _was_ an emo guy in a sex shop. The warm tingling from the exchange took the edge off the sour twist from feeling rejected, and he took the long route home to better try and cool down from this emotional rollercoaster of an evening.

It was late, and the icy draft that followed him up the steps meant he was already plotting out where he’d last left his fleece blanket so he could layer up once inside the frozen abode. But when he unlocked the door he was instead greeted with cozy light, a temperate warmth, and the familiar snores of an exhausted Eddie stretched out on the couch in nothing but a sweater and boxers.

Awed, Richie’s jaw dropped along with both bags in his hands. The camera battery clattered loudly to the floor, and the boxed dildos tumbled from their bag and spun out across the hardwood. 

“Oh, fuck!” he cried, reaching for them right as Eddie jolted awake from the loud exclamation. 

“ _Richie_ —“ he gasped groggily, abruptly sitting up and surveying the apartment. He settled on the newcomer, who had dropped to his knees to pick up the mess. The bags under Eddie’s eyes were even more sunken than usual, noticeable as he blearily blinked away his sudden wake-up panic. “Oh… Richie.” 

“Ahh, the princess has awoken from her slumber. Pea under your mattress too big to be comfy in your bed?” Richie immediately started teasing as he watched Eddie sling bare legs off of the sofa. “Or is that draft in your room still bad even with the heat on?”

“No, I was just waiting- ...I just fell asleep out here,” Eddie avoided eye contact by kneeling to help pick up the boxes. Without warning, he reached for a package with bold pink letters that read _KING CLIMAX_ with an image of a girthy toy printed on the front, staring at it.

Amused by the face journey Eddie took from startled to confused to embarrassed to understanding exactly where the shopping trip had been, Richie took the box from him and shook it around.

“Maybe the princess can use this one in her new scene,” he chided with a smirk. 

“Listen, Richie, about that…” Eddie shuffled with more of the dropped items. He was sheepish, without any of the usual glower that Richie had come to expect based on their usual arguments. It usually went like this: Richie joked and avoided the topic at hand, Eddie got more and more frustrated at his lack of seriousness that they argued about _that_ until they forgot the real issue and everything returning to normal. But this was one of those times when Eddie would be genuine, and Richie’s stomach knotted in nervousness at having to talk about things he didn’t want to. “What I said before… it’s not about having just one scene, but when we were reading the script the reason I felt so upset about it was because what I _really_ want is to—“

He began to pass the last box back when his eyes glanced over the receipt that was stuck to it, Spike’s name and number scrawled in red marker. Richie hurriedly grabbed for it before anything could be read too closely and shoved the contents back into the bag, blood running cold as he stood hastily.

Eddie slowly got to his feet, the gears in his brain clearly turning. He met Richie’s nervous gaze, frown painted more deeply now.

“Uh. Yeah… I just really want to try some crazier stuff so I appreciate you adding another scene,” he finished, the softness of his earlier tone vanished.

Any of the peace Richie had found on the long walk home faded back into waves of guilt and self-loathing at the sudden shift in atmosphere, and he nodded stiffly.

“Roger that, loud and clear, it’ll be in your hands tomorrow night,” he said, then, desperate to change the subject, gestured to the lit apartment and started taking off his winter coat for the first time in weeks. “And what the fuck is this, by the way? What did we do to earn God’s blessing?”

“Oh, uh - Merry early Christmas,” Eddie blinked. He didn’t sound very joyful, but joined Richie in admiring the warmth of the apartment.

“ _You_ did this?” Richie pointed at him in awe. Had Eddie dipped into his dedicated school savings? Had he been working overtime and Richie just hadn’t noticed?

“I didn’t know what to get you this year, so I figured a working fridge would suffice,” he chuckled.

Seeing that smile was more satisfying than dwelling in sour feelings or awkwardly trying to make an apology, and Richie clung to it, searching for a joke to continue improving the vibe, “I’d say thanks, but who really wins out here - _I_ might get to shower but you _finally_ don’t have to shack up in a tiny bed with a stinky guy who’s gonna snore you awake every night.”  
Eddie frowned, and he gave a curt nod. Given the context of their earlier argument, Richie decided that maybe self-deprecation was not going to make his roommate more lively and, for once, decided to just shut up. Putting a damper on Eddie’s hard work and thoughtfulness was _not_ what he needed to be doing right now. _Why can’t you just get over yourself and say thank you like a normal person?_ Richie scolded himself.

“Yeah, I guess not.”

They stood silently for a long moment, words clearly dancing on the edge of Eddie’s tongue as his fingers finicked nervously with the edges of his boxers. But he never said whatever it was he wanted to, instead deciding to quietly go to his room.

“Are you going to bed?” Richie asked, loneliness urging him to take a few involuntary steps forward before halting in place. He was frustrated by his own behavior - suggesting that Eddie sleep alone only to desperately want an excuse to lay with him in bed one more time, all while knowing he’d hate, as he had every day this week, the tortuousness of brushing up against Eddie’s legs and shoulders, never as close as he wished.

“Yeah, it’s like 2am, Richie.”

“Is it? No way,” he said, giving into his need to touch and reaching for Eddie’s hand suddenly, delicately holding it as he turned his wrist to read the watch that was always strapped there. “We gotta fix these kitchen clocks, they’re still all outta whack from the electricity being off.” 

“Yeah, you were out… shopping really late.” Sadness fringed Eddie’s reply and Richie felt regretful as he imagined his best friend staying up, pacing the apartment alone, anxious and overthinking following their strange spat, all because of Richie’s selfishness.

Suddenly, he couldn’t let go. 

His thumb brushed the warm skin on the inside of Eddie’s forearm, the tiny sigh that it elicited was barely noticeable over the arm being jerked away, and then his hands were empty again.  
“Make sure you set your alarm tomorrow, I don’t want to have to jump on the bed to get you awake again,” Eddie said, spinning on his heel and disappearing into his room without another word.

Too awake from their exchange to sleep, Richie was crouched over his desk writing last minute revisions to the script. He’d switched himself out of the scene with Ben in exchange for Eddie; it was freeing, somehow, to write a fantasy for the pair. Ignoring the persistent jealousy, he found he wasn’t so hung up on the realities of things he’d have to personally do to Eddie, instead being granted permission to imagine all the ways he’d love to see the wound-up brunette be undone. If Eddie’s Christmas gift to him was paying off the bills, then Richie would return the favor by crafting the hottest sexual encounter his prudish roommate could dream of with an undeniably gorgeous partner.

His eyes wandered to the manila folder with the checklists in it. Bill had gone through them, but Richie actually hadn’t ever looked at Eddie’s List, too terrified by what seeing those little inky checkmarks might unlock in his mind. But now, alone for the first time in so many nights, Richie reached for the papers.

His fingertips traced the edge of the folder, hesitant. With a deep breath and pounding heart, he found the courage to flip it open. Immediately, his mouth went dry. 

Despite a few predictable boundaries (if he wasn’t so titillated by the list, he’d have laughed at the bold scribble of NO on snowballing), there were more positive checkboxes than Richie had expected.

Along with tidy little checks, he’d also made helpful notes in the margins, implying that he had ruminated long and hard on each topic: 

_Will try._

_Seems rough on knees. Will try._

_Maybe if I’m on top?_

In that big open space below for previously unspecified interests was a short list. Richie’s eyes traced over the ink there at the same pace that his fingers traced over the front of his sweatpants.

He sighed as all the emotional stress and heated tension that had been folded tightly between he and Eddie unfurled from his gut in hot surges. He shoved a hand into his pants, swallowing hard and blinking back sweat as he worked himself at a frenetic pace, eyes never tearing from the curvature of the handwriting he knew so well: _dirty talk_ , _pantyhose_ , _restraints(?), mutual masturbation, shower sex_. 

“Ahh…” he huffed, biting back a groan. He had _never_ allowed himself to imagine this acutely about Eddie. But having it in full clarity, handed directly to him as a request to look and imagine and write from it… the dam had been broken, waves of every perverse fantasy that Richie had ever withheld on the grounds of maintaining some respectability threatened to drown him.

It didn’t matter how loud his choked moans had become, his brain focused only on trying to settle for a single fantasy. The overwhelming content of the List thrust him wildly from vision to vision of Eddie with hands tied tight above his head, or Eddie wet and pressed up against the cold wall of their shower, or Eddie with sheer socks pulled up high on his strong thighs, or the whines Eddie would make if Richie whispered all the things he wanted to do to him in his ear.

“F-... _uck_ … fuck!” 

His head went fuzzy and any thoughts vanished in the grip of his looming climax, the coiled heat from days of buildup finally washing over him in hot release. He clutched his chair as he came, finishing himself in stilted pumps until he collapsed into an exhausted slump of heaving breaths. 

“God, I’m going to hell,” he grumbled, pushing up the glasses that had all but slid off his face with the part of his hand that wasn’t draped with cum. He stared at it exhaustedly, then glanced at the manila folder. Spatters of white had landed on the paper and he jumped to his feet, embarrassment chasing his heels as he ashamedly searched for a tissue to clean up. He had none. “ _Shit_. Richie, come on…”

Knees still trembling, he shuffled across the hallway to the bathroom to wash away his shame, halting mid-reach for the doorknob when it suddenly turned on its own.

He was face-to-face and nearly chest-to-chest with a freshly showered Eddie, tousled hair damp and towel wrapped around his waist. The smell of his bodywash wafted dizzyingly over hot steam that poured out behind the small man, who looked equally startled to see that his roommate was still awake.

Richie was still coming down from his orgasmic high, and it seemed impossible that his cheeks could flush any harder than his heart was pounding. He hid his hand behind his back and wondered what gave Eddie the right to be so damn handsome.

Barely shy, Eddie tugged his towel up a little, a gesture that Richie tried not to clock as notably bolder than days ago when he’d have preferred hiding behind a shower curtain. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hog the bathroom if you needed it. I thought you were asleep. Why are you still up? If you keep staying up this late it could really start to affect your health, especially during wintertime when our internal clocks get thrown out of synch because of the onset of early darkness, your moods can get--”

“I just have to shit,” he replied blankly.

“TMI, dude. Sorry for the steam, if you wanna let it air out a minute.”

“I don’t mind. Your soap smells good.”

Eddie searched his face, then asked, “...Is the heat on too high?”

“No,” replied Richie, wishing he wasn’t so pale that it was immediately obvious anytime he was flushed. “I’m just glad we have it. Anyway, _you_ should go to bed, I thought you were the snoozy one.”

Lingering in the doorway, Eddie neither tore his gaze from Richie’s face nor made any room for him to pass by stepping aside. Overwhelmed by awkwardness, guilt, and a new spike of arousal from Eddie’s damp bare chest as he had _just_ imagined it, Richie slid past him through the narrow entryway. He was too big, and his broad shoulders meant their arms brushed as they passed. 

“‘Night,” he mumbled, forcing Eddie to move when he closed the door abruptly behind him. He finally caught his breath once his roommate’s footsteps faded down the hall, staring hard at the sink to avoid having to face the mirrored reflection of the sexed-up mess that Eddie had just had to observe.

Richie turned the sink on to cold and stuck his head beneath it, muttering, “ _Fuck._ ”

  
\--------------

He forgot to set his alarm. While it might have been a subtle invitation for Eddie to come and jump on his bed as was threatened, his roommate did no such thing, opting instead for the classic move of abruptly pulling the pillow out from under Richie’s head and whacking him with it.

They’d packed the equipment into the car and piled in together, morning conversation sparse and - when they did talk out of necessity - still a little awkward from never actually having confronted any of their problems the night before. 

The car squealed down the road, Eddie yawning enough without caffeine that Richie turned on the radio loudly to drown out his friend’s dramaticisms. With a small glare, Eddie turned it back down.

“Hey, Rich,” he said after a minute, eyes focused on the road. 

“What’s up, Eddie Spaghetti?” He was finagling with the camera, checking the settings so he’d be prepared before the library. However, when Eddie took a long time replying, Richie paused in his tinkering to impatiently push up his glasses. “Yeah?”

“You know if you want to invite people over to the apartment, you can.” 

“What? Yeah, I know. I invite Mike over all the time.”

“No, I mean like dates and stuff. You pay half the rent, it’s half your place too. That’s really obvious but just putting it out there that it wouldn’t make me uncomfortable. As long as they’re not like touching my stuff or coming into my room or eating the food in the fridge or using the TV, or… anyway, yeah, just. You’re too funny to not get dates, so I’m sure that’s not the problem. You should bring them around sometimes,” Eddie made a sharp turn amidst his long list of rules, and Richie had to hold on to the seat, blinking as he tried to follow where this topic was going. 

“Uhh,” was all he managed. Then, after a minute, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not much of a dating man, Eddie. Ever since your mom stole my heart, I fear I’ll never love again--”

“I _have_ noticed, which is why I’m just saying - look, I’m not trying to corner you or whatever, I just think if you’re keeping people away from the apartment for my sake, you don’t have to. I can get out of your hair for an evening or two sometimes. You deserve to get out there, too,” Eddie said, his voice strained. They weren’t arguing, but for some reason the intensity of his speech made it feel like they were and Richie found his adrenaline spiking as he tried to unpack why this conversation was happening. “I’m just worried you’re... lonely.”

Richie imagined a timeline where he unbuckled his seatbelt, opened his door, and rolled right out of the car.

“Pfft! How could I be lonely when I’ve got you?” he said instead, trying to joke. It sounded too earnest, so he added, “...To annoy.”

Eddie’s exhaustion by Richie’s constant emotional disingenuity was evident from the way he dramatically rolled his eyes and turned the radio back up, the gleeful croons of Dolly Parton easing their tension. 

“Well, you’re succeeding - you’re lucky I haven’t moved out, yet.”

“Honestly I’ve been trying to get you to move out for years. Why do you think I switch the hot and cold knobs on the faucet every Friday since we’ve had this place?”

“...What? Richie, _what?_ Are you serious!? _You_ do that?” Eddie dared to pull his eyes away from the road, appalled at the confession as he reached across the seat to whack Richie on the arm. “You asshat!! I thought I was going crazy!”

“You’re so dense, man!” Richie dodged the attacks as best he could through a burst of giggles. “It’s been like three years, I really thought you’d notice the first week…!”  
“Why are you like this?! This is targeted harassment! You know you can devote your time to driving _other_ people up the wall, right?” Eddie cried, but then lost himself to Richie’s tearfully infectious laughter. 

They drove on like that, the familiarity of innocent banter whisking away the weighty conversation like a breath of fresh air.

\--------------

“Like this?” Mike asked, adjusting the lone necktie over his nude torso as he shifted his shoulders against Bill’s hands. 

“Mikey, come on, just be natural,” Richie urged, wiggling his body around as an example. “Loosen up. You’re the anatomy professor who was just caught jacking off by the coach in the library. The hottest man you know wants to seduce you with a full body massage. Look at him like you’ve never fantasized about somebody harder. You’ve been waiting all semester for this man to throw you on the desk and just ram you raw.” 

Mike tried to follow the instructions, looking up at Coach Bill with an awkward grimace-smile that made the writer stifle a laugh.

The crew was gathered at the edge of their makeshift set where the men were seated on top of a library table in tight pants and open shirts, illuminated dramatically by Beverly and Eddie holding lights on either side. Ben snorted at Richie’s raunchy directing, bumping the boom mic into Bill on accident and knocking the actors off balance, so Richie bellowed through his homemade paper megaphone, “Get it together, people! Artmaking takes focus! Okay…! Let’s start from the top. Bill, let’s get this guy relaxed. Action!!”

It didn’t take long for the men to melt into their roles, any prior awkwardness overshadowed by the fun of carrying out the scene.

“Spread his legs and lean in… resist the kiss, leave him begging for more. He’s been lusting just as hard as you,” Richie directed them from behind his camera, invested in searching for the perfect shot. “Yeah, perfect, Bill!”

Mike delivered stilted lines saved by Bill’s more eloquent acting and Richie mouthed along with every word from behind the camera, pridefully enraptured by seeing his writing unfold in real time. The librarian briefly blanked on what to do, looking to the camera despairingly as Richie whisper-directed him, “Pin his hand above his head, show him who’s really in control. Again, _with fervor!_ ” 

They wrapped the afternoon’s scheduled erotic events, struggling only through a short narrative scene where Beverly, in the cheerleader uniform that they’d hemmed shorter, seduced Ben’s character in their fake lunchroom set with a plethora of phallic foods. It had taken a few cuts to get through the laughter but by the end of it the whole group was sufficiently loosened up, and all the explicit scenarios that followed went smoothly. Richie was exuberant. This was fun, and it looked _good_.

Breaking for lunch, the group cleaned up and re-dressed in robes and jackets while Eddie disappeared out into the cold to retrieve snacks from the car. He waddled back in awhile later, too impatient to set down the balanced trays of food and handful of drinks before trying to shake his coat off. Richie was adjusting lights nearby for the next scene when he noticed his friend’s plight. Leaning around Eddie’s small frame, he plucked the drinks and trays from his busy hands, startling him.

“Just because you’re getting a handjob tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t ask for a hand now,” smiled Richie, giddy from the thrill of their success and the prospect that maybe everything was starting to go right. 

“Ha-ha,” Eddie shrugged out of his coat with a roll of his eyes, but Richie could see that he was thankful for the help because he stepped aside so they could work together to lay out the snacks. “That was pretty good, right?”  
“I’m losing my shit, dude,” Richie shoved a baby carrot into his mouth and chewed excitedly. “Everybody’s enthusiasm is turned up to ten! They’re killing it out there, man. It’s better than it looked in my head, and honestly... seeing full-frontal Mike was _not_ as weird as I thought it would be.”

Eddie covered his face from embarrassment. “It was a little weird.”

“But not bad!”

“...But not bad,” laughed Eddie. “He did pretty good despite everyone watching. I’m sure your directing helps a lot.”

“Wellllll, I don’t know how much they _really_ need it - I’m worried I’m intruding on the passion of the moment, you know?” Richie scratched his stubble thoughtfully. “I haven’t actually done this before.” 

“I couldn’t tell. Filthiness is the thing you’re best at, Trashmouth,” Eddie reassured him quickly. “It seemed like it helped, and - simply speaking as a crewmember - I liked hearing you talk through it. Kinda knew what was coming and everything for… you know, the... lighting cues and all that.”

“Eh, maybe - I feel like I could go easier on sounding like a bad romance novel though,” he chuckled, then lowered his voice in a dramatic impression of himself, “‘Lick that thick cock like you haven’t had a drink all day!’ isn’t really much of a stage direction.”

“Ha, yeah,” said Eddie, anxiously tapping at the tabletop. “Though, it might be hard to do our scene without hearing your directions.”

“I think Bill will probably help out with that in my place.”

“Yeah, no, I know, you just kind of put everyone at ease so I thought that maybe you could find a way to work that in when we’re… you know, when we’re the ones up there. I might lose my place, maybe you could just say what’s next, quietly, or…”

Their knuckles bumped as they simultaneously laid out platters of veggies, a thrill rippling through Richie from both the confession and surprise contact. Memories of Eddie’s List and his written fascination with dirty talk left Richie wondering if maybe his roommate’s cheeks were flushed for another reason than having been out in the cold. Butterflies consumed his gut, and he gaped at Eddie, stunned for a response. 

“Uh, I mean, I could… It might not work since we’re on camera, but there are other ways to direct somebody. More physically, if you think that would--”

He didn’t have a chance to stumble through his words any longer because a bathrobed Mike suddenly rushed over, having just hung up his phone.  
“Guys! Some peers from the library association are in Portland for the holiday and just invited me to meet with them in the morning,” he explained, a little panicked. Eddie instinctively rested a hand on his shoulder to relax him. “I’m sorry, I know the timing is bad, but they’re only here for a little and these are the folks I’ve been trying to interview with forever. I know I’ve got all the camerawork tomorrow and I can be back by evening, but that won’t be enough time to film all the scenes with Richie….”

“Say no more, Mike! We have time for one more scene today, so let’s just switch some stuff around, all right?” Richie smiled, feigned optimism masking the pooling dread from what he was about to say. “The threesome is gonna be pretty big so let’s do that tomorrow and finish the intro now, then wrap up with me and Eddie’s part instead. Then we’ll only need you in the evening. Just some rearranging.”

His anxiety spiked at the same time that Eddie dropped the platter of crackers he was holding, but the relief that washed over Mike’s face made the sacrifice of being unprepared and terrified for his own scene worth it. The things he was willing to do for friendship.

The three all kneeled to pick up the spilled food, and Richie asked over Eddie’s blubbering apologies about being clumsy, “What do you think, Eds? You okay with that?”

Eddie had gone fully pink, eyes round from being caught off-guard as he jumped to his feet with the cleaned up plate. But despite the clear tension in his body, he still gave Mike’s shoulder a too-hearty pat and said determinedly, “Yes! Why wouldn’t that be okay! You have to do this, Mike!”

“Thank you both _so much,_ ” Mike said, earnest. “I’m gonna give them a call back, and then let’s get this show on the road, right?”

\--------------

Richie’s eyes were glued to the floor of the study, the accidental patterns to be found in the intricate hardwood a poor distraction for the anxiety that gripped his stomach. He was slouched over in an uncomfortable chair, jiggling his leg.

“Ugh, I feel like I’m roleplaying as Eddie,” he sighed, trying to catch his breath. “Where’s _my_ inhaler?”

“Don’t worry, Rich. Remember that we made this one easy for you, okay?” Bill kneeled beside him and tried to catch his eye. Ugh, there it was: easy for _him_. Turns out Bill had him pegged this whole time, having taken the reins on writing this scene when Richie couldn’t stomach it. The low-intensity sex scene had never had been about being gentle on Eddie, but rather Richie’s heart. “Just remember the order and you’ll be all right. You corner him at the bookshelf, he flips it and pins you against the wall, you give each other handjobs, you guys finish and that’s a wrap. Simple, that’s it. Just have fun; that’s what you’re good at, buddy.” 

He patted Richie’s back as the nervous actor gave a few nods and clambered to his feet.

“Gah… thanks, Big Bill. You can say I’m an idiot for committing to this though. Hey, how do I look?” he asked, holding out his arms to show off the letterman’s jacket where they’d sewn the number ‘69’ to the sleeve in red felt. He was shirtless beneath it, glasses removed from his clean-shaven face and hair pompadour’d to the best of his hasty ability. The slim jeans were such a departure from his usual wardrobe that he couldn’t decide if they made him look like a genuine porn star, or a weird cowboy.

“The outfit’s a little absurd but... somehow you look more put together than I’ve literally _ever_ seen you. Eddie’s going to pass out.”

“I’m gonna what?” a voice from behind them asked and Richie spun around to see Eddie standing in the doorway, decked out in a cropped polo shirt and tiny red shorts. It was impossible not to check him out; the shirt rose above his bellybutton, framing his abs perfectly, and the little white socks that had been tugged up high on his calves accentuated his athletic form. His hair was slicked back in such a way like it was ready to have hands run through it, and the thick frames of Richie’s old glasses with the lenses popped out made his brown eyes look even darker. It was heartstopping.

“We were just saying it’s fine if you’re so overwhelmed by how hot I am that you pass out,” he grinned, trying to keep his gaze on Eddie’s face so it wouldn’t be obvious that he had just undressed him with his eyes. But Eddie returned the favor, surveying Richie’s bare chest before rolling his eyes.

“Fainting isn’t a joke, you guys. It means your brain isn’t getting enough blood, why is that funny?”  
“Well ‘cuz all the blood goes to your boner,” Richie pointed at the red shorts, and Eddie just scowled. “That’s the joke _and_ the science. C’mon, Eds, it’s kind of funny.”

Eddie suddenly peered at him, stalking over like he had somewhere to be and leaned close to examine Richie’s face, who withdrew in surprise.

“Did you… shave?” he asked, incredulous.

“Oh, uhh, yeah, last minute addition. Is it weird? It’s kind of weird,” rubbing his smooth cheeks, Richie looked away. The moment he’d finished the job in the library bathroom he’d regretted it, the look transforming him into some kind of clean-faced 70’s yuppie.

“No… uh. No, it’s nice,” Eddie stepped back and cleared his throat shyly. “Your jaw is so… no, I can just see your face so clearly. I was starting to think the stubble was permanent.”

“Yeah I just didn’t wanna give you beard burn or anything,” Richie chuckled, but Eddie’s eyes went wide and awkwardness befell them at the implication of their looming kiss. They stood like deer in headlights until Bill reminded them he was still present with a little wave.

“Oookay guys, I’m going to go make sure Mike has the camera ready to go. Meet us out there in five?” he started to head out, but not before he gave Richie a reassuring pat on his shoulder. 

Alone, silence infused the space between them. Richie wished he hadn’t had to move things around like this; trying to make everything tolerable for Eddie on such short notice was eating at him. That, and with no time to truly mentally prepare, _he_ wasn’t ready. He stared at the ground and tried to quell the aggressive nervousness that fluttered in his stomach, reminding himself, _Don’t worry_ . _He’s not into you and said as much, so you’ll be fine. No pressure to impress. You’re just friends, and that’s fine. Just handjobs with your buddy that trusts you to keep a roof above your heads, nothing weird. Don’t be weird._

“Bev told me she and Ben practiced last night,” Eddie said abruptly, cutting through his thoughts.

Unsure of what to do with that information or the way it plummeted his anxieties about performing reasonably even further south, Richie laughed loudly. He was reminded, suddenly, of how long it had been since he had sex with an actual person and felt the building stress of how out-of-practice he might be. “Oh wow, really? Damn. Why didn’t we think of that?” 

He wanted to slap himself for the question, blaming the stupefying mix of emotional anxiety and electric excitement from the reality that he was about to have sex with Eddie.

“Yeah, right? Seriously,” Eddie laughed too, but the concern in his creased brow made evident that he was nervous. “Like, come on, idiots. Have some foresight! We can plan everything else perfectly but when it comes to us, it’s--”

Neither had a chance to comment further, because Beverly suddenly appeared in the doorway and tapped her wrist, noting that they needed to get started and Ben was ready to go for the opening. The two followed her out into the hall, pausing only briefly when Eddie’s hand grabbed for Richie’s shoulder. He lowered his voice, looking him in the eye seriously. “Hey, Rich. Before you go out there, are we… cool?”

Richie swallowed, not certain how to respond. What would his answer even be, if he did reply honestly? They hadn’t talked about _anything_ following their argument yesterday. Doing so would have meant having to confront all the secret insecurities Richie harbored, on top of confessing to the complex pain of both wanting and fearing having scripted sex with the love of his life - so, no, he decided: it wasn’t cool, and it was his own stubborn fault. 

But Eddie was working so hard to look confident, even though the crease between his brow gave away his worry.

This couldn’t be easy for him either, Richie reminded himself, and so he resolved to do what he was put on this earth to do: make Eddie Kaspbrak smile. Pulling out his most well-practiced grin, he assured his roommate earnestly, “Of course, buddy. We’re cool.”

“Take three, and… _action!_ ”

Richie jogged into the scene with Ben, backdropped by a series of shelves that they’d dressed up to look like lockers. Bill strolled in as their coach, his referee shirt all unbuttoned with a whistle necklace drawn up tight around his neck. He slung a leg up on the bench they’d situated in the center of the room, his thighs perfectly framed as he delivered an impassioned speech about how the duo would be kicked off the team if they didn’t get better scores in their classes, ending the scolding with a smack to each of their behinds on his way out.

“Oh _no_ , Chad… what are we going to do?” Ben whined, annunciating each word like the charmingly average actor he was. He splayed himself out along the table, sighing dramatically. “I’m failing spelling and Stacey won’t talk to us if we get kicked off the team… all I have in this life is you, football, and my abs... it all makes me feel so--” he pulled off his shirt in such a fluid gesture that even Richie raised his eyebrows with surprise. “-- _trapped_.”

“You need to think bigger and thicker, Brad. We need help, so the real question is… _who_ will we do? You and I are going to get some A’s,” Richie looked directly at the camera, and on cue Mike zoomed dramatically on his face. “Because ‘A’ stands for _Ass_.”

“Cut!” Beverly exclaimed through the megaphone from her short-term spot in the director’s seat, “Looking good out there, lads!”

Everyone lowered their equipment while Mike skimmed through the footage on the camera, flanked by a silent Eddie and curious Bill.

“Wanna come look at this Rich, and see if it was better than the first take?” he asked.

Satisfied with the footage, Richie called for a set change. They moved the equipment between an aisle of books where Eddie patiently took his position. From behind the tripod, Richie caught his eye and gave him a little smile. The costumed nerd returned it, but his attention was drawn when Ben approached and they had a hushed conversation. It ended with Eddie giving him a grateful smile and receiving a prop book, which he buried his nose in for the start of the scene. 

Bill nudged the distracted director away from the camera.

“Ready, Tozier?” he asked with a big grin.

“What’s that smile for?” scowled Richie suspiciously.

“Hey, nothing. Don’t forget what I said earlier, okay? Just relax,” he said, and shook the script. “Keep to the script and you’ll have nothing to worry about. I’ll help out from over here.”

Richie exhaled heavily, shaking out his nerves with a solid nod. “Yeah, all right. Thanks, Bill. It’s all good. I’m gonna be good.” 

He caught Eddie’s eye over the top of the prop book, his pounding heart guiding him to step into the light of the set. He turned and gave a thumbs up to the awaiting crew, calling out, “Okay, team - let’s do this.”

It took them a solid ten minutes to get past the first narrative chunk of their scene, Eddie remembering his lines so well that he occasionally read out Richie’s instead, and Richie calling insistently for unnecessary cuts and re-do’s until finally Bill hollered at them to stay in-character and just _do it_.

They managed to get through it, performing perfectly until Richie was positioned behind Eddie, who was leaning up along the bookshelf, exaggeratedly cocking his hips as he reached up to put the book away. He shot an inviting glance over his shoulder, the thick glasses slipping down his nose. _What did I do to deserve this?_ Richie thought, debating whether the scene before him was a blessing or curse. 

His eyes landed on the curve of strong back that extended from under the cropped polo shirt, mesmerized by the line of Eddie’s spine as it guided him to the small dimples just above the band of his shorts. He’d admired Eddie’s naked back a million times for every hot summer that they’d swim at the quarry, but he’d _never_ thought his friend would be showing it off to him like this, and his heart skipped with a thrill.

The script dictated that Richie was supposed to… do… _something_ now, but he had gone blank. He thought he might have heard Bill giving him direction from the other side of the room, but the hammering of his heart in his ears masked it, and all he could do was tentatively reach forward and slide his hand down Eddie’s spine.

Eddie twitched under the unexpected touch, dropping the book in surprise with a small gasp as Richie slowly explored the curvature of his back, fingertips caressing the warm skin down, down, over every alluring indent until he was sliding his palm along those tempting hips. 

Richie knew his hands were trembling, but the sigh that shuddered from Eddie emboldened him to wrap his arm around his waist and flip him until they stood facing each other.

They were aligned with the script again, now.

_Focus, Rich. Say your line. Just say it._

Richie was barely able to throw a flirty spin on, “Are you trying to tease me?”

“Is it working?” quipped Eddie, and he was so invested in acting to his best ability that it shook Richie back into character. 

“Shouldn’t a nerd have all the answers?”

“According to my research, I’ve learned your girlfriend won’t have sex with you until you’re back on the football team. How unfortunate… a big sexy guy like you, it must be so hard to be _so_ horny.” Eddie pouted dramatically and hooked his fingers in Richie’s belt loops, tugging them roughly together. It was as written, but the overly-assertive gesture layered with uncharacteristic dialogue caught Richie off guard and he nervously tripped on his own feet, tumbling into his scene partner until the brunette knocked ungracefully against the bookshelf. Richie tried to stand Eddie straight by the small of his back and grimaced, whispering, “Oh - shit, sorry, you okay?”

“Ow, yeah, no it’s fine, keep going, keep going,” hissed Eddie, positioning himself in Richie’s hands more comfortably. He continued loudly, “Ahem. So let me guess, Chad: you need a tutor to improve your grades? I can help you get them up. But only if you help _me_ get something up.”

He glanced awkwardly towards the camera during the cringy dialogue. 

“You did win the Dickathlon last year. I’m sure there’s _all_ _kinds of things_ you could teach me,” Richie clutched the bookshelf behind Eddie, miming thrusting in a big exaggerated sway of his hips. The embarrassing absurdity of it made Eddie break into a small laugh, and he turned away from the camera to gather himself as Richie, feeling victorious, continued with a waggle of his eyebrows, “You know what they say about guys who have big brains.” 

“Let’s start by raising that D,” Eddie recited, tugging on Richie’s belt loops again and pulling them flush together in a little spin to reverse their positions. 

The bookshelf was cool against his back when Eddie pinned him against it. The energy from their prior silliness dissipated in the same moment that the smaller man’s broad hands raised to unexpectedly brush along Richie’s neck.

His stomach flopped from the tender touch, a meek nudge at Eddie’s hip an attempt at reminding that the script said they should be unbuttoning his jeans, now.

Instead, Eddie traced the smoothness of Richie’s jaw, wide eyes trailing the path like he was observing something transcendent. Everything felt quiet, slow, and Richie briefly forgot where they were, lost in the faint freckles that speckled across Eddie’s nose. 

Struggling to remember that he should be doing his job and not just gazing lovingly at his crush, Richie attempted to get them back on track. Resolving himself to play director, he tilted his lips beside Eddie’s ear in a quick whisper, “Undo my pants. You’ve got me wrapped around your finger, now. Make me know I’m yours and--”

Any further direction was smothered by Eddie’s mouth as Richie was suddenly seized into a rough kiss. It was all open-mouthed and immediate with no caution behind the slip of tongue. 

His heart soared. 

Mind blanking in the euphoria of hot lips dragging against his, Richie could only match Eddie’s heated desperation and clutched the back of his neck in a firm hold, angling him back so he could deepen the kiss. Instinct and desire drowned out the faint realization that this was _Eddie_ in his arms - a very real Eddie who was kissing him like the world was ending.

And for all he knew, it could have been.

“Umm--” a distant voice through the megaphone threatened to disrupt their make-out, but someone shushed it and the room melted away until all that was left was Richie’s hands grabbing at Eddie’s hair, Eddie’s hammering chest pressed against his, Eddie’s teeth digging into his bottom lip.

“ _Eds_ ,” he groaned dizzily, trying to understand their sudden departure from the script. Eddie pulled away and Richie immediately missed his mouth, but barely found time to catch his breath when a messy kiss below his jaw rendered him useless again. This was too much so suddenly, thoughts of _what is happening?_ vaporizing into a lustful haze when he felt Eddie’s lips bruising the skin in that soft spot that drove him crazy. He tightened his grip on the back of his partner’s neck, seeking some kind of support and losing it in every drag of tongue and tooth against him.

Inhibitions dampened by the heat coursing through him, Richie grabbed Eddie’s hips to slow him down, jerking him closer, grinding into him.

The smallest “Ah!” escaped swollen lips and Richie growled lowly. Hungry to hear that gasp again, he rolled their hips together once more - this time slower, harder. It worked; a strangled moan caught in Eddie’s throat and he grabbed at Richie’s bare chest, who was awed by how much he could feel through those thin red shorts. Eddie was _hard_. 

Cheeks burning and eyes locked on their intertwined thighs, Eddie still refused to meet Richie’s gaze, eyes flickering instead across the shirtless figure as his fingers trailed curiously downwards. Richie tensed when Eddie’s warm hands came to rest on the band of his jeans, an experimental graze of thumb over his restrained erection forcing his head back against the bookshelf in a stifled gasp.

A fight-or-flight thrill of adrenaline jolted him out of haziness, desperately needing to draw Eddie’s attention anywhere but the obvious arousal in his pants. He gathered what courage he had and grabbed Eddie’s wrist in one hand, lifting his chin in the other with a gentle nudge.

Everything halted and those brown eyes finally met Richie’s - a lidded mix of lust and determination and something a little bit frightened.

“Eddie...” he murmured, tender.

And when Eddie’s dark eyelashes fluttered, Richie fell in love again. If he only had once to kiss this man the way he wanted to, then tonight would be it.

This time he leaned in so slowly, so closely, that he could feel the whisper of breathlessness against his lips, a shuddered edge of _want_ behind it all. But still Eddie waited, watching Richie, enraptured. 

Savoring that electric sight, Richie closed his eyes and kissed Eddie like he had always imagined doing for the first time: at their high school prom, or on a summer stroll under the boardwalk, or in falling snow outside an old bar, or intertwined together on the sofa under piles of warm blankets.

And Eddie kissed him back - just as soft, slow, open, and hot as Richie had ever dreamed. Desire surged through him like a sunburst, doubling when he felt the button of his pants being gently undone and a lithe hand slipping down the front of them. 

He huffed against Eddie’s lips when he felt fingers wrap around his cock and drag along his length, any peace he had a moment ago swelling into nervousness. 

“Oh, that’s-- ” Eddie swallowed, the unfamiliar huskiness of his voice so deeply seductive that Richie involuntarily bucked against his hand and stuttered out a moan. Eddie took advantage of this, picking up the pace of his stroke as they slipped back into frenzied touching. There was only pause as Eddie spit obscenely into his hand and brought it back around Richie, the cool wetness drawing a shudder from him. It was unbearable; but more unbearable still was when his roommate straddled his thigh, thrusting up against him haphazardly. 

“ _Shit,_ all right,” Richie breathed, lips bumping against Eddie’s. He pawed at the red shorts, pressing his thigh between strong legs as he guided Eddie’s hips in needy ruts to match the pace of the hand on his cock.

Eddie was losing himself to the pleasure of their frantic rhythm and slung his free arm around Richie’s neck to better drag their bodies together, barely noticing how his working hand, slick with cum and spit, was tormenting Richie into a gasping mess. 

“Nngh… ” Eddie moaned in stifled sighs against his neck, carnal in his desperation and never letting up on intensity. 

Richie was wound tight but his nervousness was as relentless as Eddie’s pace, the anxiety restraining him behind a threshold. Overwhelmed, overthinking, and desperate for something to push him over the edge, he gathered his courage and shoved his hand into Eddie’s shorts. He was hot, already dripping from all the needy thrusting and so, _so_ hard that Richie wasted no time caressing him in firm drags. Eddie cried out, head lolling back from the sudden bliss as Richie tried to feel out every moan, tremble, and sigh so that he might get his mind off the pressure of being Eddie’s center of attention.

They drove each other into a deeper spiral of pleasure, but as Eddie trembled closer to finish, Richie felt himself growing further from it - the rapt focus on giving the man he loved a good time all-consuming. 

“Eds, _Eddie_ ,” he whispered thickly, shame pooling right alongside taut arousal. “ _Fuck_. I’m not gonna... Listen, I can’t - sorry, just let me finish you, let me--”

Eddie leaned back, blearily taking Richie in from behind those skewed, fake glasses like he’d been fully lost in their passion and only remembered where he was at the sound of someone’s voice. He ran his hand, wet with pre-cum, up Richie’s chest and rested it over his thrumming heart, examining the sticky mess. 

“Okay,” Eddie hummed, then lifted his eyes to Richie in a heated gaze. “ _Okay_.”

Leaving no time for further reaction, Eddie kissed him close-mouthed but firm, using the moment to boldly tug Richie’s jeans down a little further. 

“ _Hey--_ “ Richie glanced down, startled, only for Eddie to drop to his knees and run his palm along the underside of the exposed erection, licking his lips with a purposeful concentration, like he was trying to decide what to do. Short-circuiting, Richie _also_ wasn’t sure what to do; but when Eddie suddenly kissed his tip, Richie gulped in full panic, “Whoa, hey, hey, y-you don’t have to do that.”

He reached down to grab his shoulder but Eddie just leaned into the touch, eyes closed, taking the slick head onto his tongue and wrapping it between darkened lips without any further hesitation. Richie choked, arching forward to stop himself from bucking deeper.

“ _Shit,_ ” he exhaled, resting his head against the shelf behind him because he couldn’t bear to look anymore, melting only into the sensation of Eddie’s hot mouth exploring him. Tentative licks and small kisses gave way to an engulfing wet heat. Richie’s mind went static from the pleasure, barely aware of his trembling legs.

“A little direction, maybe,” requested Eddie, so softly it could barely be heard. “I haven’t done this before.”

 _Fucking hell_ , Richie thought, finally anchoring his hazy focus below. Eddie gave him no pause, suddenly taking him deeper, determined tongue gliding along his shaft on the drawback and licking against his tip, haphazard but greedy. There was nothing perfect about Eddie’s technique; with his eyes gracelessly squeezed shut, sloppy sucking a bit too rough, and hand fisted awkwardly around Richie’s shaft, his inexperience was obvious. But it was raw and needy and confident and it was _Eddie_ , and in that Richie found what he needed. He managed to sputter, “Yeah, that’s - that’s good, keep going like that. Just… look at me.

And Eddie’s eyelashes fluttered open, his attentive, doe-eyed gaze lifting to meet Richie’s. At the same time, he decided to try swirling his tongue around Richie’s swollen head before returning to his earlier efforts - slicked lips meeting his hand as he worked Richie in short bobs, all the while never breaking his amorous smolder.

Enchanted by the blissful, head-spinning image of Eddie fully ravishing his cock, Richie felt the rising build of pleasure in his abdomen threaten to crash over him. With his remaining resolve, he pulled himself from that wonderful mouth and took to his own hand as Eddie watched, dazed. It was the last thing he saw before his eyes slammed shut and he choked on a gasp, spilling into his fist with a low groan and praying that no name would follow with it.

Panting, brain still fuzzy, Richie gave himself no time to recover as he seized Eddie by the shoulders, riding the adrenaline to force him to his feet with inspired strength. He swept Eddie close and dipped him into a kiss, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other thrust into his shorts.

“Mff!” Eddie retorted, but Richie didn’t care about the phantom taste of himself as he feverishly searched out Eddie’s tongue. The complaint melted into a pitched whine and Eddie went tense in the embrace, trembling as Richie jacked him off. 

He wanted Eddie to lose himself, to come undone wrapped up in _his_ arms, against _his_ lips, in _his_ hand, safe and close and ruined by desire.

And then, if not just this once, all of Richie’s wishes came true. 

Eddie fisted his hands against Richie’s chest, curling into him as his moan mounted into a cry, open mouth mercilessly kissed all the while.

Wet heat slicked between Richie’s fingers, mixing with the stickiness from his earlier orgasm as he dragged out the last of Eddie’s gasps with gentle strokes. The soft exhaustion in the sound clenched at his heart and he opened his eyes, knowing he’d regret nothing more if he didn’t memorize this moment.

Languid in his arms, Eddie had become a sweaty, heaving mess. Richie relished in the way his pink cheeks and bruised lips caught the light, messed hair drooping over his forehead uncharacteristically. Hand moving on its own, Richie instinctually brushed it aside.

Suddenly their eyes met, Eddie’s big browns sharply focused and flaring with something Richie didn’t recognize. But it made his stomach flop uncomfortably, and he immediately dropped his hand to right the unsteady Eddie. 

Without breaking their gaze, he said, “And, uhh… cut.”

He glanced to his left, the stage lights blinding him until the others turned them away. They all looked a bit incredulous, with some confused enthusiasm as Bill awkwardly started clapping. Beverly nearly joined him until Ben reached out to shush them both. 

“...Uh! Okay…! Wow. Nice job guys.”

“We’re gonna have to do _so_ much editing with the names, damn--”

“Great improv! Really made it feel romantic.”

There was an overlap of mild, supportive comments as genuine as they were uncertain, and Richie wasn’t really sure what to do.

“Yeah, thanks. Uh, let’s take five and see if we can’t fit anything else in today,” he said, trying to maintain some enthusiasm even though he felt himself crashing into a pit of exhaustion. “Move the stuff over to the lounge and get it set up for tomorrow’s stuff - looking at you Bev!”

“You bet, Rich. Looked great out there.”

He was emotionally and physically spent, and in lieu of his arousal embarrassment began creeping over him - a reminder that the dream was over. He could feel Eddie’s eyes searing into him and realized he still had the man in his arms, finally taking a step back. He took the opportunity to readjust his jeans, shyly zipping them back up before glancing up at Eddie. 

It was dizzying to look at the wobbly-legged Eddie in all his blushing glory, chest still rising in small heaves as he swiped his clean hand over his lips and tugged his shorts up. Richie lowered his gaze and picked up the prop book and a hardcover that must have fallen when they bumped into the shelf, handing it to Mike when he appeared with a towel.

“Is this…?” Mike’s eyes grew wide as he took it, exclaiming, “Is this cum on this book? Richie!! We were supposed to be careful!”

“Oh - oh shit, sorry dude, my bad, that’s--” Richie winced when he saw the small stain, blushing in full and grabbing it back to rub at it with the towel. But Mike snatched it right out of his hands again and flurried off to clean it. “I’ll… I’ll buy you a new one! Who’s the author? Mike!!”

He grimaced, but the snort of laughter next to him caught his attention and he turned to Eddie, who was stifling delirious giggles behind his hand.

“Cross this off my bucket list - I think I just jizzed on Tolstoy,” Richie said blankly, and Eddie laughed harder. The nervousness in his gut was trumped by overwhelmingly tender post-coital feelings of wanting to be close to Eddie and he stepped near, handing him one of the clean towels. “Here. Nice work. Uhh, you feeling okay? Need anything?”

“Yeah, no - yeah, of course,” Eddie replied a little weakly, his embarrassment evident from his red ears and the way his eyes downturned when he swept the towel over hand and stomach. Richie’s eyes flickered down involuntarily, the salacious vision of a cum-stained Edward Kaspbrak one for the archives, before he forced himself to turn away out of politeness. There had to be some boundary maintained.

“I’ll get you some water,” he said, a blush scorching his cheeks. 

“Can you wash your hands, first?” Eddie called after him, and it would have made Richie laugh if his heart wasn’t sinking just as fast as reality was solidifying around him, desire-tinted lightheadedness fading fast. 

He gave Eddie a little wave and shuffled off, startling when Bill strolled up with some of the snacks they’d set out earlier.

“Impressive,” he said, smugly munching on a cracker. 

Richie pretended to be deeply invested in pouring water.

Bill continued facetiously, “Guess Eddie didn’t really need those merciful script cuts we made. Could it be he’s been underestimated this whole time?”

“Yeah, we--” Richie began, but Bill raised an eyebrow, “...Yeah, _I_ underestimated him. I didn’t think he’d actually want to… to give a blowjob….” _To me_ , he failed to add.

“Even though he _did_ write in his list that--”

“Bill, please, I seriously can’t talk about this right now. Are you trying to fight with me? Do you see me? I’m fully fucked up right now, all right? I _literally_ have been fucked and I can’t figure out if I’m over the moon or if I just crash-landed,” Richie’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper to avoid anyone overhearing. “I am dying right now. On the moon.”

“That sounds very confusing,” Bill nodded, whispering along with him, “But I’m just saying, I think we owe him an apology after he got upset about it yesterday. It seems like maybe he wanted to… prove something to us with that departure from the script. And he kind of did.”

Richie’s heart lurched as he threw back his water like it was a shot. Right. That would make sense. Eddie had been proving himself.

“I can’t do that, man,” he sighed. “Fuck. _Fuck_. Yeah… yeah, you’re right. No, you’re right. It’s not on you though, it was my fault and I’ll… I’ll talk to him later.”

Bill nodded quietly and passed him another water, asking softly, “And are _you_ okay?”

“I will be,” he said, grabbing a second cup. “I always figure it out.”

They wrapped production for the night and the crew filtered out after exchanging enthusiastic hugs.

Richie was abuzz with a swirl of emotion; the thrill of having seen his story come to life - and _well_ for that matter - was only eclipsed by a confused jumble of Eddie-centric joy and heartache.

“Goodnight!” he waved at the others as they all dispersed down the street.

“They really killed it, huh?” Eddie said, voice muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face. He set a bag of equipment in the trunk, standing close while he waited for Richie to finish packing up the camera.

“I’m fucking amazed, honestly,” Richie nodded, rubbing his cold hands together before slamming the trunk shut. He leaned on it, looking out at the library as the lights turned off one-by-one and Mike waved at them distantly, heading home as little flecks of snow began to fall. “Uhh. And… you really killed it out there too.”

“Sorry for… going off the script like that,” he said, sheepish. His eyes were big and sweet and had lost any fight from earlier, their tension faded into simple awkwardness instead. “I know you didn’t write it, Rich, I don’t want you to be mad that I didn’t respect your story or anything, but you just seemed like you--”

Richie wanted to do _anything_ but reflect on what he had ‘seemed like’ during their scene and he was quick to interject, “No, Eddie - don’t worry, I’m sorry. For making you feel like you had to… uh, do that to prove I was being a shithead about the script. And I _was_ being a shithead.”

Eddie stared at him for a beat, brow knitting tight. He inhaled sharply to say something stern but Richie cut him off again.

“--And, I have something for you. It’s nearly midnight, anyway.”

“What?”

“Did you forget it’s Christmas Eve, idiot? Ho ho ho,” Richie pointed up at the sky. 

“Oh. White Christmas,” Eddie noted, looking up at the snow. 

“ _Please_ you have to realize how easy it would be to make a sex joke about that.”

“And you’re resisting? The control, Trashmouth…” smiled Eddie. Then, with a shy expectancy, “Um. What do you have for me?” 

“Ta-da!” Richie pulled a short script out of his jacket pocket. “I finished this last night for you. Well, okay, maybe it’s not much of a gift since it was by request, but I tried to make it really fun.”

“Ben?” he asked, flipping through the pages, sounding almost disappointed.

“Yeah, I switched around our parts so I got one less. I figured, you know - what you said before about people you trust: nobody more trustworthy than Ben! And you saw the guy today! Phew. Dreamboat. Should be easy.”

Eddie looked up at Richie suddenly, eyes flashing again with that unidentifiable something.

“Not that you need easy, obviously! He’s just hot, I mean,” Richie quickly added, not wanting a repeat of the day before. Even though he babbled at a mile a minute, he felt like he was trudging through the mud of his emotions to get it all out, “I’m doing the threesome tomorrow so I figured it’d be best to sacrifice my place in this one instead, and you get brand new content, I didn’t just switch out our names. I double-checked your list and made sure to put all the stuff you like in there so it’s super Eddie-curated - you’re a dirty bastard, by the way - and I hope…uh, I hope it’ll be fun for you.”

“...Thanks, Richie. This definitely might be one of the weirder gifts you’ve given me but I appreciate it,” he said, tucking the script under his arm and tugging his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go home before it snows any harder? I can make us a late dinner.”

“Huh? Dinner this late? Don’t you have some WebMD article memorized about how eating after 11pm is bad for you or whatever?” Richie snorted as he slid into the passengers’ seat, desperate to escape the awkwardness.

“I don’t know about _you_ , but that took a lot out of me,” answered Eddie. “And you should eat something too, let me cook for you. You worked hard today.”

He glanced at Richie, who sunk more deeply into his seat as an aggressive bout of butterflies flowered in his stomach from the sweet offer. He stared hard out the window even as Eddie’s eyes lingered on him.

“You can chop if you want. I won’t tell you you’re doing it wrong, but just this once as thanks for the present.”

“Aw, you know I love to chop! Okay, Eds. Anything for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thx for reading and sticking with me!
> 
> i'm very busy next week so i don't know how much time i'll have to write, but hopefully eddie's followup won't take too long!


	8. bring it on

In the time it took for them to drive home, Richie had fallen asleep in the passenger’s seat and Eddie had fallen in love.

It didn’t dawn on him until after they pulled up to their apartment, Eddie gripping the steering wheel with a white-knuckled focus, his head and heart as flurried as the snow that pattered against the windshield. Richie dozed peacefully beside him, glasses skewed and lips parted around a graceless snore. Riveted by the sight of reflected street-lights in those thick frames, Eddie was reminded of their evening decorating at Mike’s apartment when he’d found Richie half-asleep with glasses carelessly still on. The urge to remove them had been inexplicably strong - but then, when he really thought about, wasn’t it always? 

Wasn’t he always finding some stupid excuse to reach out and find Richie at his fingertips, whether that was half-heartedly trying to close a drafty window so he might crawl into Richie’s bed instead, or asking Richie to bike him to school so that maybe he could wrap his arms around him for a few minutes, or agreeing to star in an adult film just because he thought it’d be nice to see Richie smile so excitedly a few times more?

Hadn’t he always known what painful breathlessness that churned in his chest as a teenager had never been asthma, but a perseverant longing buried under layers of anxiety and fear and denial?

Didn’t he always understand that through it all, Richie Tozier was so beautiful, so caring, and so comfortable to be in love with?

Almost as soon as the realization breached did he slam his palm against the car horn, the wailing honk chasing away the extreme clarity of his epiphany at the same speed that Richie jolted to life.

“ _JESUS_ \- wha—?!”

“W-wake up, dipshit, we’re home,” Eddie said. Richie shoved his glasses back up his nose, sitting up too-straight as if he’d never dozed.

“Christ! Thanks for the gentle awakening, Eds. Keeping me up, as usual,” he muttered, reaching into the back to retrieve a bag.

‘Keeping him up, as usual’ should have no underlying meaning when Eddie had literally been bothering Richie every night lately. And yet, the tender way Richie had wrapped his arms around him in the library carried a faint glimmer of hope that maybe, to everything, all this time, there _had_ been an underlying meaning.

Eddie watched him greedily, a hot thrill in his chest blossoming as Richie spoke - voice low and groggy from sleep. His strong neck was exposed beneath his coat collar as he stretched to the backseat. How easy it would be for Eddie to lean in and take the skin there between his teeth like he had mere hours before...

It was dizzying, and suddenly he had to know.

“Do you kiss everyone like that?” Eddie blurted.

Richie froze half-way into the back and stared. “Uhh. What? Like what…?”

“I- I don’t know, I’m not a poet! I mean, like… sweeping, kind of.”

“Huh?” Richie furrowed his brow, then went back to digging in the backseat with a nonchalant scoff. “I don’t know, I guess so, yeah. I mean that’s what it said to do on the paper. It’s called acting Eddie, nothing special, I just did whatever. Why? ...Did it... stand out to you?”

“Yeah, no, I mean, no.” Eddie stared at his hands on the wheel. He wasn’t sure why he was still hanging on when they’d been parked for minutes. “No, I get it - same here. I just was just curious. Of course _you’d_ be dramatic on tape.” 

“Damn, if it was that good maybe it’ll land me an agent,” he grinned. Then, suddenly serious, “Okay - now I have a question for you.” 

“So say it.”

“All right… but I need you to, please, just… be honest with me.”

Richie’s eyes locked to Eddie’s, a burning heat that stole what breath he’d been holding. He withdrew his arm from the backseat, reaching forward as Eddie dared not move. The tight space of the car had him feeling like they were pressed together between the bookshelves together all over again.

A jelly-smooth firmness squished against his cheek followed by a sudden vibration and Richie crooned, “Have you been stowing your personal vibrator collection in the car? I don’t remember buying this one.”

“Ugh - Richie!!” Eddie swatted at the toy pressed against his face and kicked open the door, gathering the supplies from the trunk in an angry flurry. His cheeks burned - he shouldn’t have asked about the kiss; it had been stupid to expect anything more, really.

“Car theft is up in Derry, Eds! I just don’t want you to lose what you love!” Richie called after him as Eddie stormed inside.

The chop-chop-chop of carrots was a metronome to Eddie’s rhythmic sautee-ing and careening thoughts as they stood side-by-side in the small kitchenette. 

They had traded off taking showers right when they got back. Something about sudsing away the sweat and cum cemented the reality of what had just happened, and Eddie could only shuffle awkwardly into the living room and try not to remember how right the weight of Richie’s cock on his tongue had felt when they silently passed each other in the hallway.

It _was_ awkward, and yet the ease with which they fell into their typical routine was alarmingly comfortable and, Eddie now considered, illuminatingly domestic. In fact, he was walking on clouds despite Richie’s quietness. After all, Eddie had loved hanging out together in the kitchen like this nearly every night the last eight years, and he was beginning to grasp just how much he wanted to keep doing it every night following. Isn’t that why they got into this mess in the first place - to be able to hold onto their apartment, to each other? These evenings were _theirs,_ and Eddie’s heart warmed.

Richie yawned mid-cut, interrupting the thoughts by accidentally ricocheting a carrot slice out from under the knife.

“Whoa, Jesus! Can you pay attention, please!?” Eddie dove for Richie’s wrists before the same thing happened to his finger. He tugged the knife out of his grip. “If you’re tired, can you take a seat? I’m seriously not in the mood to watch you bleed out on the way to the ER.”

“Like we could afford a trip, Chef! I’ll bleed out in the comfort of my own home, thank you very much,” Richie grinned but tugged away from Eddie’s hands as quickly as he would a hot pan. “What can I say? I’m tired, you wore me out.”

A thousand flirtatious comebacks zoomed through his head but instead of managing to form words, Eddie just dashed to the other side of the kitchenette to finish his cooking, cheeks alight. It was difficult enough trying to make dinner when his legs were still weak from what had been, in no exaggeration, the most incredible orgasm he’d ever experienced. He glanced back at Richie, visibly relaxed now that he was alone to chop carrots, and wondered what it’d felt like for him.

They ate and only made it about half-an-episode into _Gilmore Girls_ before Richie started to nod off. The still-damp tousle of dark hair that brushed against Eddie’s neck as his roommate drifted into slumber had him rigid, barely daring to breath in case he squandered an opportunity to brush his nose up against the messy, still-damp locks of his sleeping roommate. He closed his eyes and let himself smell the soft florals of Richie’s shampoo, relishing in how wonderful it was to just let himself indulge in the swell of giddy warmth rather than try and ignore it like he always had.

Eddie wanted to run his hand through that hair again, wanted to kiss that strong jaw and feel him tremble under the touch. He wanted to see the sharp-witted Richie melt into mindless moans with nothing but the shy sputter of Eddie’s name on his tongue. The thought spun a hot frenzy in his abdomen.

 _What am I doing?_ Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, jostling his shoulder with a whisper, “R… Richie. Hey. Wake up, idiot.”

Richie came to with a snort and as soon as he realized that he’d been laying on Eddie’s shoulder did he scoot as far as he could into the other side of the sofa. With a sheepish clearing of his throat, he apologized. “Sorry man, uh, can we finish tomorrow, maybe?”

“Sure, let’s go to bed.”

They stared at each other and the cold emptiness left from where Richie had just been resting drove Eddie to rally the courage to ask what he wished he’d been asked last night.

_Can we go to bed together?_

But Richie spoke first, practically powerwalking to his bedroom as soon as he got to his feet. “Yeah, we should. I have a big day tomorrow with the… you know, the threesome and everything.” He grinned with exaggerated swagger, “Gotta get my beauty rest so I can sweep the others off their feet and show ‘em that Richard ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier doesn’t just talk the talk. That’s what you said it was, right? ‘ _Sweeping?_ ’”

Eddie had nearly forgotten about the impending threesome and the crashing reminder nosedived his heart so sharply that he could barely manage to feign annoyance.

“Your ego is too big,” he mustered, gathering up the new script and making way to his room just as hastily. 

“That’s not the only thing—“ came the predictable reply, but Eddie interrupted with a wave of the papers, embarrassed by how the bad joke could possibly trigger the desire to undo Richie’s pants and see the evidence himself.

“Enough! Aren’t you ever off dick-joke duty? I need to go brush up on my new scene! Goodnight!”

“That’s the spirit, Eds,” Richie was all smiles. Eddie had to look away. He ducked into his room with a small mumble of goodnight and a head full of fantasies.

\--------------

Knowing, for the first time, _exactly_ what he wanted was unexpectedly painful.

On set before, Ben had comforted Eddie with a soft-spoken advice that was so reassuring it immediately curbed his nervousness when a rugged Richie sauntered up. 

_Just do what feels right,_ Ben had smiled.

So, while Richie was shyly gazing down at him between those bookshelves, Eddie took it to heart and had done what felt right.

And truly, nothing had felt more right than losing himself in Richie’s fluttering gaze, slipping into a stupor under his heaving chest and soft kisses. His body was ablaze with the memory of what it felt like to slide his hands into Richie’s pants, to drag sticky evidence of his desire across hot skin, to taste his tongue and feel the desperation with every snag of teeth on lips. He’d never felt wanted like that. He’d never felt loved like that before. 

He’d realized then that, with Richie, everything _always_ felt right; failure and pain and happiness and newly, sex - as long as they shared it, Eddie had been fine. But now things were off. Everything was supposed to go back to normal, but Richie had kept his distance all evening and disappeared so early in the morning that Eddie didn’t even have the chance to brew them both a cup of coffee or even start a Christmas breakfast, and every text he’d sent to check in were uncharacteristically left unanswered.

Finally, after he’d texted his friends holiday greetings and pulled on fresh slacks, a message buzzed in.

**Ben Hascome:** Good morning! Merry christmas, eddie!  
 **Ben Hascome:** I figure rich told you, but mike isn’t coming back till super late bc holiday traffic. me, Bill and Bev are taking the evening off to split champagne at the hotel if you need a drink  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Merry Christmas, Ben!  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** I’m not feeling too well today, might pass.  
 **Ben Hascome:** Oh shit are you OK?   
**Eddie Kaspbrak:** Nothing a little sleep can’t help.  
 **Ben Hascome:** …….. that’s pretty nonchalant coming from a sick eddie. Listen, if you need an ear, we’re around  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Thanks man, it’s stupid so no big deal

**Richie Tozier:** hey sry, i was running an errand. Hands full  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Errands? On Christmas? Are you meeting Ben at the hotel later?  
 **Richie Tozier:** just around town atm. Yea def are u?  
 **Richie Tozier:** merry christmas santa baby ho ho ho  
 **Eddie Kaspbrak:** Merry Christmas. And yeah, maybe  
 **Richie Tozier:** sry i skipped breakfast, need to hit the library to get stuff ready 4 tonite. Big dickings means big prep  
 **Richie Tozier:** oh yea, forgot. No mike till late! Everythings pushed back   
**Eddie Kaspbrak:** I heard! Do you need a hand at the library?

Half an hour later and no reply ever came, not even a handjob joke following the easy set up. It was enough time for Eddie to pace the apartment, stress reorganize the spice cabinet, and decide that he needed to do something about all this; he was not about to stand by and lose Richie’s waning attention to a threesome. If he wanted the chance to enjoy Richie’s affection, even if it was just one more time, then he had to make it known. 

Powered by caffeinated resolve and a pounding heart, Eddie marched down to the library and poked his head into the lounge where the man he’d dreamed off all night was quietly tinkering with a camera.

Richie was all focus and frown, slouched lazily on a desk with his long legs strewn about indelicately while he focused a lens on some roughly person-sized stacks of books and blankets. He seemed to figure something out, because after a glance through the camera, he bellowed a joyous “A-ha!” and Eddie was so overwhelmed by endearment that he laughed too.

Richie jumped, nearly dropping his camera. “Jesus, Eddie, god! You have to stop scaring me! You’re so little, your feet weigh nothing, like a little mouse! Can you get some maracas or something so I know you’re coming? Maybe we can put a bell on you?”

“Heart can’t take it?” Eddie grinned, closing the door behind him. He gave himself a minute for his butterflies to settle, before sliding onto the desk beside Richie.

“...You could say that. I’m getting old, y’know, higher chances of heart attacks and all that - you’d know more about that though, Dr. K.” Richie smiled, but hopped off the desk to pace to his bookstack mockup, leaning against it.

“I’ll spare you the diagnosis. What are you doing here so early, anyway?” asked Eddie, feeling awkward now that he was alone on the table.

“Just seeing if I can figure the best way to compose three bodies on screen and keep it sexy. So Mikey can jump right in when he gets back tonight, make it easy on him, y’know? What are _you_ doing here?”

Eddie tapped the desk nervously. “Well, it’s Christmas so I didn’t want to go the whole day without seeing you.”

“Really? Thought my gift to you might be getting out of your hair for once,” Richie chuckled, and deferred to adjusting the camera lens again. “Anyway, I’m not up to anything that’d excite you, not even cleaning, so if you wanna head back home it’s fine, I can catch up with you later--”

“Also, I had an idea,” Eddie interrupted, the creeping feeling that Richie had been trying to avoid him excelling his drive to get this done. “I was thinking, I think the nerd should be in the threesome. If the tutor shows up there’s gonna be this sense of victory and familiarity, following his relationship with the jock-- ”

“Uhh, that’s sort of random for the story, right? The whole thing is building up to this scene with the cheerleader and football players, so…” Richie reached across the table and pulled one of the scripts over, flipping through it. He cleared his throat and pointedly did not make eye contact with Eddie as he added, “What, didn’t like the new play-by-play with Ben?”

Actually, Eddie had no issue with the new scene that had been written for him; he’d liked it a lot. His issue was with the fact that when he’d read it, his mind summoned visceral fantasies of Richie in Ben’s place and he couldn’t stand the thought of doing it any other way. “No, I loved it. Er, it was good, really good, Richie. It just got me thinking. Last night… doing the scene. It was fun.”

A painful silence, which Richie shattered with a blunt, “Oh, okay. Good.” 

“So, I… I want to do more.”

Any bolstered bravery that Eddie thought he might have from admitting this was squashed by the lack of followup from a surprisingly quiet Richie. There was a weighty pause, the writer glancing at the fresh script that he’d stayed up drafting as if he didn’t understand what more could be asked for. So, Eddie tried quickly to fill the silence, an anxious dread gripping him as he tried to assert his request. “You don’t need to change anything. I just think it’d be best if we put the nerd into that last scene.”

“I- I don’t know, Eds, I don’t think it really works,” Richie scratched his head, flipping uselessly through the pages. He seemed a little exhausted. “We already have the costumes, there’s all this promise of a cheerleader scene, I’m already having trouble with working the shots with three people. And it was kind of designed for Bev, don’t you think it’d be a little goofy if suddenly this geek shows up with--”

“Goofy? What, you don’t think I could do it as good as Bev?” Eddie asked. Of course. He hadn’t considered how he was supposed to compete with someone like her.

“C’mon Eddie, we’re filming in like 5 hours, I-- ” 

But Eddie didn’t let him finish his thought, disappearing from the room to search for the boxes of costumes, digging through them with such feverish desperation that he wondered if he might be sick after all. It only took a moment for him to find what he wanted, the cheerleader uniform’s fabric a striking red in his hands. Well, Richie _had_ said he liked a short skirt, and if that’s what he was weak for, then Eddie needed to speak the language of a man who’d write a character like Stacey.

Halfway finished packing up the equipment and clearly trying to leave the library as fast as he could, Richie spun around when he heard Eddie re-enter the room. Fully prepared to blather some speech on why he needed to go, his eyes fell on Eddie and he did nothing more than go slack-jawed.

Only a few inches taller than Bev, the hemmed cheerleader skirt rode up higher on his thighs than Eddie had expected. The crop top might have stretched a bit tight on his chest, but it served his purposes; there was no point in feeling vulnerable about a little more exposed skin when he was already decked out in the red hot uniform and stalking towards Richie with all the confidence he could muster. 

The gangly man staggered backwards, a perfect portrait of awe. Knees buckled when he bumped into the chair behind him, accidentally toppling back into the seat with an incoherent, “Wha-- hey, um…”

Yes, this was it. _This_ is what Eddie had been craving: a breathless Richie with eyes on him and him only. Crazed by the satisfaction of wanting this reaction and actually getting it, he planted himself directly in front of his target, lifting a foot and resting it against the seat between Richie’s splayed legs. _Be Stacey_ , Eddie rooted himself on.

Thick glasses couldn’t mask the intensity with which those eyes trailed up Eddie’s thighs. It sent the same hot shudder through his body as when he’d been clad in runner’s shorts, but this time there was no camera to come between them, and desire urged him to close the space. 

“Well? I think it works. How about you?” he said, sliding his foot slowly along Richie’s thigh.

“All right, yeah, all interesting points,” Richie swallowed, face red. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, switching off between gripping the chair and nervously clutching the hem of his own shirt, but still tried to save face with a forced confidence. “I mean, as director I can confirm you look great, but I don't get why...”

“Let me help you understand,” Eddie said, sweeping his skirt up as he draped himself across Richie’s lap in a straddle. He leaned in to drag his lips along Richie’s neck, sighing against the spot that he’d been craving since they pulled up to their apartment last night.

Eddie flattened his hand against that broad chest, the rapid beating of a nervous heart resonating against his palm. It was an incredible feeling to know he was responsible for the hotblooded pulse, to have the undivided attention of the man who swept him off his feet in a single night - and who had _been_ sweeping him off his feet for years. He nipped at Richie’s earlobe and rejoiced in the shaky exhale it drew.

“E-Eddie, what are… you doing?” Richie’s hands had entirely stilled, body stiff and voice no more than a cautiously choked whisper.

“I’m auditioning,” he whispered, then tilted Richie’s chin so they were forced to meet eyes. Richie looked absolutely dreamy, a half-lidded lust and darkened cheeks painting his face. “It’s not just about the costume, right? I want to play the role, too. So consider it… Director.”

And before he could lose his cool-headed composure or give in to his stirring heart and cock, Eddie slid off of Richie’s lap, gave his cheek a little pat, and marched out of the room with the same self-assurance he’d entered with. 

Of course, it all melted away the moment he ducked out of sight into the costume room and pulled off the outfit, a gripping breathlessness overwhelming him as he kneeled beside his strewn clothes. Clutching the cheer uniform to his chest, Eddie let the twist of pride and embarrassment wash over him. He’d never done something like that, never done something so bold for the sake of his own feelings. Never tried with such intention to turn his roommate on. 

It had gone a little differently than he’d expected and he hadn’t quite said what he wanted to say, but at the very least he’d gotten his proposal across and judging by Richie’s expression, it had worked. Ears hot, he tugged on his clothes and took the long way to the parking lot, an alarming shyness creeping on his heels. 

He hadn’t accounted for what he’d do when embarrassment set in and they inevitably had to speak to each other. He was going to need a drink.

\--------------

Two glasses of champagne later and Eddie had sufficiently distracted himself in a karaoke battle with Beverly. Bill and Ben were squished together on the small hotel sofa, assigning arbitrary points when someone outperformed the other.

There was a gleeful nonchalance to it all; the others were grateful for a day off on the holiday, and Eddie was finding it easier to spin Bev around to 80’s ballads than it was to reflect on any of the regret that threatened to claw its way through his chest from trying and, potentially failing, to seduce Richie.

“ _You’re a candle in the window, on a cold dark winter’s night… and I’m getting closer than I ever thought I miiight!_ ” Bev sang, falling drunk and dramatic to her knees. They pointed at each other and, not one to be outdone, Eddie clambered onto the couch between Bill and Ben, kicking a leg up onto the back as he bellowed, “ _And I can’t fight this feeling anymore!! I’ve forgotten what I’ve started fighting fooor! It’s time to bring this ship into the shore and throw—_ ” 

“Oh, Richie! You made it!” 

Eddie practically fell off the couch mid-song, the stabilizing grip that Ben had on him doing little to quell the lurching he suddenly felt in his stomach. How could he have forgotten that _he_ was going to show up, too?

“Hey, losers,” Richie grinned, striding in like he knew he was the life of the party. He had a script in hand and tossed it to Bill. “Sorry I’m so late, had some last-minute inspiration I had to get down. Don’t let me interrupt the song by the way - you were really going hard, Eds.”

Eddie was unable to make eye contact with him as the song faded out. He poured another drink to Beverly from the counter to busy himself as the singers both caught their breath.

“You wanna have a go?” Bill passed Richie the small vase that they’d been using as a false microphone, “I’ve got _Bette Davis Eyes_ all queued up, know you love that one.”

Eddie blanched and turned on his heel, narrowing his eyes. “How’d you know that?”

“Oh, uh--” Bill shrugged, but Richie snagged the vase from him and hit the play button, shimmying his shoulders as the iconic synth filled the room. He crooned along with a well-practiced fervor, gaining a few points from Ben, before dancing across the room and wedging himself between Beverly and Eddie, draping an arm on either side of them. “ _Oh she’ll tease you! She’ll unease you! All the better juu-uuust to please you!_ ” he leaned into Beverly, twirling her hair playfully as he sang along. Her laughter would have been infectious if Eddie didn’t hate how much he wanted Richie to turn and do the same to him. He slid away from the embrace and sauntered closer to the couch, unnoticed by Bill and Ben, who’d started in on the script Richie had brought.

He overheard them muttering over the music. “It’s odd, why would he change it so last minute? I wonder if he’s okay, this kind of fucks with the story.”

“It _is_ surprising. I don’t know why he took himself out of it. I don’t think it’s because of you,” Bill mused, “He told me he’d be fine having sex with you since you guys have history."

“Well, okay, it’s not quite ‘history’,” said Ben, shaking his head with a little sigh. “It was at our high school reunion recently, but we’re cool now. He was so drunk and sad that night that I… wonder if hooking up again will like, trigger a bad memory or something.”

“What?” Eddie didn’t mean to reveal that he’d been eavesdropping, but the unexpected disclosure rang in his ears.

“Richie took himself out of the threesome just now and put you in instead,” explained Bill, paging through the script. “Was thinking it might be because --”

The music faded out, allowing for perfect clarity as Eddie interjected, “No, wait, _Richie_ hooked up with _Ben_ at our high school reunion?”

“NO, no, he just made out with me -- ” Ben began, but when he realized the whole room could hear and Beverly and Richie’s eyes were both on him, he immediately bit his tongue. Silence deafened the emptiness where loud karaoke once played as no one made a move to start the next song.

“What?” said Richie. 

“What?!” Eddie jumped to his feet. 

“It was only once and we were just drunk!” said Ben, floundering to make up for what he’d revealed. “Didn't mean anything, right, Rich?”

“Didn't mean anything but for some reason everybody here knew but me?” Eddie gestured to the room. On a normal day this would be funny: a stupid thing between friends, a goofy drunken anecdote. But their last weeks had been anything but normal, and belligerence had reared its head right alongside envy. Eddie wished he didn’t get so sensitive when buzzed.

“Rich asked me not to-- ” began Ben, but was interrupted when Richie exasperatedly grimaced, “ _Ben-!_ ” and restarted with a sigh, standing as well. “ _We_ … just didn’t want our friends to get the wrong idea.”

His voice was so reassuring that Eddie nearly found himself calming down, if he wasn’t so confused by the fact that Beverly was gripping Richie’s wrist like she also knew what was going on. Eddie had to set down his champagne glass so he could gesture wildly. “Did it _need_ to be a secret for some reason? Bill knows? Bev? You guys weren’t even there, I-- does Mike know?” 

There came no answer, the silence diffused by the static that rang in his ears and the dizzying spin of everyone’s eyes on him. He wished that Richie would say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask for an explanation. Eddie flopped into the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose with a loud sigh.

“It’s fine. Sorry Ben, sorry Richie. I don’t know why I’m freaking out, I’m just… a little drunk and it surprised me,” he muttered, trying to iron out the complicated emotion weaving through his stomach and heart. He reached across the couch and hit the play button on the music, trying to sate the awkwardness he’d fed with his outburst. “Seriously, it’s fine, please keep singing, I love this song."

“Eddie,” Ben murmured quietly, leaning close beside him on the sofa. “You good, buddy? Do you want me to walk you back to your apartment so you can rest?”

“...Can Bill take me?” Eddie asked, head spinning. “He’s... a really steady cyclist.”

Bill chuckled softly and Eddie found himself being tugged to his feet. “Okay, I got you, man.”

\--------------

After two slices of bread and a powernap, Eddie awoke far more clear-headed. His room was dark, illuminated just so by the streetlamp outside his drafty window. There was a big glass of water left out on the table beside his bed, and as he sat up to chug it he could hear Richie’s muffled voice from the living room.

“Look, he asked me to do it! Sorry, Bill. Yeah, thanks. No... I just... really don’t want to do another scene with him,” Richie’s voice carried. He was on the phone, pacing with heavy steps.

The cold condensation on the glass was nothing compared to the icy chill that ran up Eddie’s spine, threatening him with a prickle of tears. If he thought desperate desire was an inferno, then rejection was hell.

“I’m good to stay behind the camera. The esteemed couple Benverly is happy to assist with the rest,” Richie muttered. "I gave him what he wants. The rest isn’t my job. Eddie’s pissed at me anyway. ...No. No, I’ll catch up with you guys at the library tonight. Sure. See ya.”

There was a long silence, the familiar slump of Richie plopping into the couch followed by the clicking of phone keys, before the gentle stomp of his boots carried him out the door to the car, and the apartment was empty again.

Richie was only partially right - Eddie _was_ reasonably pissed at him for lying by omission, and, more unreasonably, for being so damn unpredictable. That aside, there was no one else to be angry with but himself. He really should have seen this coming: Richie wasn’t into guys, he wasn't really into _anybody._ He didn’t even do relationships. No, Richie was an opportunist and a good actor and no matter how real it felt to Eddie, Richie was doing work, which is what the movie had been all along. Of course he’d be repulsed by Eddie roping him into his own messy feelings and selfish desire with ulterior motives. This was what he'd been warned against his whole life; it was better to be safe and stick to what he knew. That's who Eddie was, not a dreamboat main character that anyone would fantasize about filming a sex scene with, and he’d been stupid to try. Hadn’t he learned to properly manage expectations and factor risk in business school? 

He went hunting in the fridge, searching for something sweet to indulge his sorrows in. Instead, he was distracted by the receipt that was freshly tacked to the front of the fridge with a note on top: ‘CHECK W/ ACCOUNTANT TO SEE IF I CAN WRITE VIBRATORS OFF FOR TAXES?’ It was the long list of sex toys Richie had picked up from the store, and Eddie couldn’t help but smile.

He fingered the paper fondly, then noticed a bit of ink bleed from the other side and flipped it, reminded suddenly of the phone number he’d spotted when Richie had accidentally dropped the haul. He’d been so suspicious about trying to hide it.

“Spike…” Eddie read, rolling his eyes at the little heart beside the name. Years of grocery store runs meant he’d seen cashiers flirt with Richie before, but he’d never seen his haggard friend ever land a phone number. It seemed like the exact thing that Richie would brag about, so why hadn’t he told the story? Should Eddie have gone harder as a 'Spike' type than a 'Stacey' type when he'd pulled out the cheer uniform? The memory of his mission: seduction made him cringe, and Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and hopped around the kitchen in an embarrassed mini-fit, furious with himself for his nonstop speculation. “Gahhh!”

He stomped across the room and popped some painkillers for his champagne headache, though he knew nothing could alleviate the heartache that panged tightly in his chest.

“Why am I like this…?” he groaned. “What have I done…?”

For the next hour, Eddie churned over variations of the same questions, until he found himself loitering outside the brightly colored ice cream shop of their summer fantasies. McConnell’s would close soon, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to pick up a cone as a peace offering and try to make a real apology to Richie for all his embarrassing demands. 

Eddie strolled down the neighborhood, unworried about taking his time since the cold weather kept the ice cream in tip-top form. He lapped at his own cone, finding it genuinely relaxing as he trotted along the road. That is until he walked right past his own car, parked outside of an unfamiliar apartment. He halted, puzzled, and studied the building to try and pin if he’d ever been to this line of rowhouses before.

“Come back next weekend!” a girlish voice called. “We wanna do it again!”

Then, a familiar one: “Yeah, I mean. Okay. If you’ll have me. Sorry about coming unannounced--”

Eddie’s mind raced to connect the dots of what was happening as he watched Richie back up out of the unfamiliar doorstep, chaperoned by two young goth women and an emo boy in a strappy leather outfit.

“Don’t apologize, man. We had fun. Come _anytime,_ ” grinned the emo guy.

“Hahhh, haha… yeah okay, I— ” Richie waved and turned on his heel to unlock the car, his grin immediately replaced with dread as he came face-to-face with a stunned Eddie.

“Drive safe!” said the strangers, and then Richie and Eddie were left alone in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Eddie. Um,” said Richie, face pale. What felt like minutes passed before he glanced down. “You, uh. Dropped your ice cream. Got a little cream on your boot, I think it might stain the suede if you don’t get to that. Hey, those are pretty nice! I don’t remember you buying them. Is that Nordstrom or--”

“Who was that?” Eddie asked, interrupting the painfully desperate smalltalk.

Richie was doing a poor job of masking just how badly he wanted to die on the spot, a tight cringe twisted up through his forced smile. “They are… uh. Just my friends. They’re just some new friends I met recently."

“New friends,” Eddie nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. New friends and they’re into… leather?”

“It’s a lifestyle, I guess?” 

That’s fine, that was perfectly fine. Richie was allowed to do whatever he wanted; Eddie had decided that he'd very thoroughly and maturely processed that conclusion on his fifteen-minute walk to the ice cream shop. His night with Richie had felt like it had meant something, but he knew now that it was one-sided and he wasn’t going to let himself get hung up on whatever wild decisions Richie chose to make. 

“Cool, seems fun dude. Well, are we going to the library to meet everyone or what?” Eddie gestured to the car, eyes never wavering from Richie.

“Uhh… sure, yeah.” Leaning over, Richie made a point to slide past Eddie without accidentally brushing up against him, unlocking the door holding it open for him like an awkward chauffeur. 

The car bounced through Derry, the soundtrack to their uncomfortable tension a static-ridden Derry radio broadcast. After too long listening to talk show hosts, and far too long in his own head, Eddie turned down the music to face Richie.

“Hey, sorry I lost it at the hotel. Ben just caught me off guard, I wouldn't have expected you two to… kiss. That’s all."

“I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything, Eddie. It’s just... it felt like too much time had passed and it was a stupid thing that happened because we were drunk at the reunion. He’s not gay or anything… _I’m_ not… yeah, it’s just awkward to bring up and we didn’t want to confuse anybody. I didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop. Like he said, it wasn't important, no big deal.”

“And the scene? Why’d you change it?” Eddie pressed.

“Uhh, well… you asked, right?” Richie gave him a look. He started driving again, eyes planted straight ahead. “It was a pretty elaborate request, if I recall, so I figured you were serious.”

“But I didn’t think you’d sacrifice your role for me. You were looking forward to it, ‘rah-rah cheersome!’ and all that. I didn’t want to take anything away from you.”

“If I’m being honest, Eddie, I just couldn’t…” Richie was trying to find the right words. With a disheartened sigh, he finished, “I didn’t really want to do another big sex scene.”

Eddie wondered bitterly what it was he had just been doing at his new friend's apartment, then laughed at the lie. He wished he could live in ignorance rather than having overheard the real reason. “So clearly our first time wasn’t good enough for an encore, then.” 

Richie didn’t seem to think anything of it, laughing along, “Yeah, let’s never do _that_ again, right?”

“Wow, okay.”

“What?! Why are you mad? You said it first!” exclaimed Richie, his teasing demeanor faltering.

“I did _not_ , it was a noncommittal statement that neither confirmed nor denied the facts but you took and projected your own interpret--”

“Look, Eddie! Listen! I promised things wouldn’t be weird when I asked you to do this, right?” Richie interjected, giving him a hard look as they halted suddenly at another light. “This was my stupid idea and I promised you and me were gonna be good, right? But now it kind of seems like things are weird. And I don’t think it’s me that’s doing it.”

“No? Okay, yeah, it definitely is totally normal that you disappear Christmas morning and ignore my texts suddenly and seem to be fine having a…” he tried to think of the strangest thing Richie could have been doing with his new friends, sputtering on, “...an orgy with a bunch of goth leather-mommy randos or whatever _that_ just was--”

“Whoooa, whoa, hold on! They are not…!” Richie swooped into their defense, holding up a hand like Eddie had gone too far. But then he stifled a laugh and added more temperately, “Well, okay yes, it _was_ supposed to be an orgy but they’re not whatever the fuck you think a ‘leather-mommy’ is - Eds, what even is that? - and I did not go there to have sex. Well, I mean, okay yes I did. At first. Actually, they wound up being very good conversationalists.”

Boggled, Eddie fully spun to look at Richie, the click of the seatbelt lock the only thing restraining his erratic arm-waving.

“It _was_ an orgy?! You just ‘wound up talking’ at an orgy? I'm sure. Hilarious, Richie. Please forgive me if I'm entirely sick of your jokes. You’re fine hooking up with a bunch of strangers but you can’t even stand to do another scene with _me? Your friend?_ After what we did?” Eddie’s pain felt like it was tumbling out in word form, any attempt at maintaining rational composure completely shrouded by all of his disappointment and insecurity.

“Huh? Is that what you’re so hung up on? I don’t get laid a lot, Eddie, but when I do it’s with strangers. This might be new for you, but it’s not for me,” Richie drove faster, his patience dwindling. “I don’t know! You were right, I’m lonely! I’m sad! This isn't about you or the movie or anything, I just make friends in strange places and sometimes I don’t tell you about them!”

“What?”

“Okay like, you know, Bill for example. God, this is not the best time to say this but here we go. We’ve… known each other for awhile, we talk online a lot,” Richie’s anger seemed to wane as he drifted into full-confession mode. “He’s a guy I met on the internet and I hung out with him once in Virginia when I went up there to see my cousin, remember, last summer? So I invited him over for this ‘cuz he really is a thoughtful writer and I knew I could trust him, with you and --”

“ _What?!_ ” exclaimed Eddie.

Richie winced, “I know, really not a good follow up to the whole Ben thing. Or orgy thing. God, _fuck_.”

Eddie’s anger boiled over suddenly, in earnest; learning that Richie had secret friends had him feeling like a fish out of water. Everything really was all wrong. “So I’m just now learning that you made out with Ben _and_ have a best online friend that you conveniently never mentioned? What’s this, like, secret life of Richie Tozier that I don’t know about?”

And just as soon as Eddie’s fury snapped, Richie matched him with defensiveness. His voice dripped with sarcasm, “Umm, okay Doc, sorry I don’t report every little thing to you during our therapy sessions, all right? I’m just _really_ going through a lot right now because my roommate refuses to crawl out of my ass.”

“Can you be serious for two seconds? What is going on with you?”

“Nothing! Listen, Eddie, we're always together, there's nothing left to tell you! Honestly, it’s become excruciating to be around you because I-- ” Richie made an aggressive turn of the wheel before slamming his mouth shut. He heaved a big sigh. “...Nevermind.”

“Wow, cool. Great to hear. So _now_ you’re deciding to be honest,” seethed Eddie. His heart twisted from the confession, the cruelty of it cutting harsh into his heart. He knew he could be grating, a habit that always worked to gain Richie’s focus was now backfiring. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, grumbling, “If you wanted me to move out, you should’ve just said so.”

There was no response from the driver, leaving them dwelling in a silence that was all too long. The dawning realization of what the pause implied made Eddie’s blood run cold. He stared at Richie, whose big hands were clenched tightly around the steering wheel. He hadn’t disagreed. “...Is that what you want? God, Richie! _You are such an asshole!_ ”

“I just - yeah, all right, maybe that’d be a good idea! I don’t know, after this sex thing with us it’s been... different, and maybe we need… Eddie, I think I need space.” 

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, anxiety tightening in his chest. This was the worst. It had been only a day since their scene together, only a day since Eddie had decided he wanted nothing more than to do it again, and here was Richie - who needed only a day to decide that he didn’t even want him around. _So much for being bold, Eds,_ he thought. _You dug your own grave._

“Stop the car,” Eddie said, unlocking his door. When Richie stubbornly kept driving, he snapped, “If you’re that fast to want me gone, fine, easy, I’ll go. But I don’t see why you can sleep with Ben or Beverly or _Spike_ or whatever _,_ and it’s fine but hooking up with me is suddenly ‘different' and you’d rather run away than just say you don’t want anything to do with me.”

Richie looked away from the road for the first time to glower at Eddie, “How did you know that name...? Did you read my texts?”

“ _No_ , Richie, I’m not your insane girlfriend - I saw your receipt on the fridge, idiot. It’s not hard to piece this shit together when you put it out in plain sight; I’ve just never even heard you talk about a Spike before. Why don’t you want to tell me about these people in your life?”

“We keep coming back to this! It's not... about you. Why do I have to tell you everything all of a sudden?”

“Why are you _keeping_ normal shit from me like it’s a big secret deal!?”

“Why?” repeated Richie, exhaling heavily as he clearly struggled to rein in his frustration. It didn’t seem to work, his cheeks going hot as he angrily matched Eddie’s volume. “Okay! Fine, Eds! It actually _is_ about you! It’s because I’ve been in love with you and it’s my worst secret and it makes me go crazy! I actually think I am losing my mind being in that tiny apartment with you, and Spike was supposed to be nothing more than a fucking replacement for you, because you’re right - I’m an asshole and I’m desperate and I don’t want to do this fake shit for the camera anymore. Being with you was so special! But I don't want to lose sleep anymore over our pretend sex because I'm head-over-heels in love and I can't tell if you just want to experiment or if you, somehow, feel the same way about me! It _is_ about you, always has been. How's that sound, you happy? "

“I can _not_ be in here with you right now, stop the car!”

Richie obliged with a swerve, refusing to tear his eyes from the windshield, jaw clenched hard.

Eddie was out of the car in a flurry, pausing before he slammed the door to glare at Richie. It was terrible to be the punchline, and worse to know that Richie had no idea just how real of a cut it all was for Eddie. “Yet again, hilarious. Another classic Richie zinger. I'll humor you: sorry for being _so_ self-absorbed that I ruined your whole life. Obviously outside of this movie we’d never fucking happen, so you can be done losing sleep over it. Don’t call me until you’re finished stooping to low jokes, like always. I’ll put my boxes together in the morning. Gonna get evicted when this thing flops, anyway.”

Tears burned his eyes as he stormed off, refusing to look back when the car squealed away at high speed.

He didn’t get much farther than a block before his phone buzzed. Expecting it to be Richie, Eddie swiped at his eyes and flipped it open.

 _“Are you done being a dickwad?”_ he tried to sound venomous through his sniffling.

“Uh, yes? Are you… you’re probably not feeling better, it sounds like?” Bill said through the speaker, lowering his voice like he thought Eddie might still have a headache.

“Oh, Bill,” said Eddie, halting in his tracks. This was simultaneously the first and last person he wanted to talk to right now; the excruciating jealousy and confusion revolving around his relationship with Richie overwhelming. And yet, there was a sense of relief in hearing his comforting voice, steadying him. “Um. No, I’m not. I’m not okay.”

“Eddie, are you... crying…?” 

The lingering question obliterated what little composure Eddie had left, and he choked on his answer as he shoved his face into his sleeve and tried to sniff back all his frustrations. He knew he looked stupid, but he felt like he'd just been clobbered, his feelings weaponized unwittingly by Richie just so the asshole could get the last word in, and now it was all spilling out of Eddie in unintelligible sobs.

If he had never felt so good as he did in Richie’s arms last night, then he had never felt so terrible as he did now, alone and defeated on the sidewalk. This kind of pain was the worst; it took all the heightened emotion he’d carried the last week and twisted it into a sharpness that ran through his stomach and chest. It was worse than when he failed his first major, worse than his last breakup, worse than when he cut ties with his mom, because at least for all of those he’d had Richie by his side. But this time, Richie was the one who wanted him gone, and Eddie hadn’t even found the courage to fight to stay.

“I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”

“By the bank, the closed one.” There was a long silence. Eddie expected Bill to hang up but was grateful to find that he intended to keep him on the line as a rush of muffled air signaled he’d taken off on the bike. After a minute of gathering himself, Eddie choked, “Hey, Bill. You’ve known Richie for… for awhile, right?”

“Yeah. S-sorry. Did he mention it, finally? Is that why you’re crying?”

“No. Kind of. I’m crying because I’m a selfish idiot and he's a jerk. But, yeah, he mentioned,” sniffled Eddie. “I _knew_ you got along with him too well off the bat.”

“I got wh-why he wanted me to keep it a secret, but I still felt bad about it. What just happened between you two?”

Ignoring the question, Eddie asked his own. “Um… can you tell me how you guys started talking?”

Bill obliged after a moment of thought, admitting, “When he first messaged me on casual encounters, he just seemed really lonely. We were originally supposed to drive and meet to hook up, but I don’t think he ever actually really wanted to. I think he just wanted somebody to talk to who was like him. We just started texting and kind of… became pals from there.”

“Um…” Eddie froze, swallowing back a sob. “Sorry, wait. Say again? Casual encounters? Like... the sex forum on Craigslist?”

“Uhhh, what? Oh, god. Oh no, I sh-shouldn’t have s-s-said that,” Bill gasped through the receiver. “I’m sorry, Eddie, th-that wasn’t for me to say, I thought he m-might have told you more than--”

Eddie dropped his phone, aghast as the whirlwind in his head suddenly came crashing to a close in shocking clarity: every scuffle Richie had ever provoked him into since they were boys, every drunken evening when he’d pull Eddie’s legs over his own, every defensive joke and faux-flirtation and every stranger he kept secret. And that damn kiss.

The entire conversation in the car was suddenly shifted into context when Eddie finally uttered his realization, “Oh, Richie is gay.”

He dove for the phone with such great urgency that his palms were nearly skinned, racing around the corner to where the old Volvo had just been parked - but car nor driver was anywhere to be seen. Eddie peered down the road towards the library. Its parking lot was empty and, with a sinking heart, he turned on his heel to race towards home.

“Bill, oh my god, Bill! I fucked up!” Eddie gasped into his phone. “I wasn’t listening to him at all, I have to go home! Please, can you get me home?”

By the time Bill had found Eddie and delivered him to the apartment, the Volvo was already gone, along with what sparse belongings Richie had in his room. It wasn’t thorough - he’d left behind books and notes from the movie, and his bedsheets were messily tugged over forgotten stray socks from an absent laundry bag - but it was empty enough that the message was clear.

Richie had run off, and Eddie was alone.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry i was gone for sooo long, but thank you for all the wonderful comments you left me! I appreciate all the patience and enthusiasm despite the lull :' )  
> i know i'm putting everybody through the ringer with this one... the drama... but I hope it's still fun.  
> one more chapter! one more!


	9. and scene

The first thing Richie had done was run away. 

Speeding past the old well house and through dark woods, he plotted the route that would take him as far away from town as possible, slowing only when the car reached the old Kissing Bridge. Rickety thudding of tire to wood jostled the moving boxes stuffed into the trunk, nearly drowning out the persistent chiming of Bill’s ignored incoming calls. 

He switched off his headlights and rolled carefully forward, darkness engulfing everything but the tiny glowing screen of his closed cellphone.

Night graciously shrouded what adolescent whispers were carved into the grit of the bridge, and Richie blindly crossed the weather-worn confessional with the full intent to ignore any reminder of his own distant visit. When the car’s wheels reunited with the gravel of road he switched his headlights back on and accelerated away, his old engraved declaration remaining an unseen secret.

The second thing he had done was fling his phone into the quarry. 

He stood at the place where they’d loved to jump, as kids, in moments of false bravado. He’d argued with Eddie for years about which of them had had the courage to take the first leap, starting the yearly tradition of greeting the summer with reckless abandon off the top of that high cliff. It was such a long-standing argument that the memory had hazed with rewrites, and Richie couldn’t remember which of them had truly gone first; maybe it was Ben, or Mike, or someone else entirely. But he did remember, as he stared out across the void of darkness below, how that first instant suspended in the air with nothing but blue sky above, deep water so far below, and friends behind him ignited a feeling of total escape. He knew, then, that it must have been a young, desperate Eddie who had leapt first.

His phone sang again; this time some texts from Bill buzzed in, but he didn’t have a chance to read them because they were followed so swiftly by Eddie’s ringtone. Richie’s heart seized and he hurled the phone over the cliff’s edge without a second thought.

The third thing he had done was cry.

“Stupid… why did I— that was expensive,” he blinked, “God, what the fuck. That was really expensive. That was like two hundred dollars. Come on, man, what the fuck? What am I doing?” He paced in a restless circle until the distant blipping light and fading song of the Motorola was swallowed up by darkness.

Observing the dying light seemed to trigger something inside of him and as soon as it faded the tears poured out, a layered sorrow of frustration and regret and anger. He wasn’t really angry with Eddie, but he _was_ angry with himself. Angry for roping Eddie into this mess with promises of normalcy that Richie couldn’t keep, angry for asking Eddie to leave him alone, angry for not finding the courage to turn around back at the bridge.

He wished that he could simply take it all back and return to being Eddie’s hopeless roommate, keeping his secret yearning buried deeply enough under years of self-loathing and practiced repression that the truth could never dig itself out to be met with rejection. And what a harsh rejection it had been. He’d always known his life was something of a joke, but having Eddie find the earnest confession of love so unfathomable that he could brush it off as a mean prank _and_ shut down the prospect in one fell swoop meant Richie was never turning around.

“Fuck that,” he muttered.

He dried his eyes and climbed back into the old Volvo, tires squealing as he drove out of Derry, as fast and far as he could go. 

\--------------

Parked somewhere on an unfamiliar street in the city, Richie awoke in a cold sweat having dreamt of Eddie.

His long legs were curled beneath a layer of jackets, squashed into the backseat of the car in a desperate attempt to sleep. Richie had stayed warm enough by donning a hat and coat over underwear as pajamas, but no amount of layers could help his cramping neck or haunting dreams of big brown eyes.

At the time, Richie had thought himself to be a genius for memorizing every moan and determined lick of lips, but now the memories of his scene with Eddie were torture. 

“Can’t I just have a normal nightmare?” he whined, kicking the box of clothes that had dislodged from the trunk and tilted over into the backseat. “Teeth falling out? Naked at school? Killer clown? …Take that instead of fucking doe-eyed... having to see his cute… _ughh!_ ”

In sleep-deprived frustration, Richie kicked the box again and its contents tumbled onto him - a clutter of socks and jeans and comics. He tensed on impact, a twanging tightness jolting up his stiffened leg. 

“Shit, shit, _shit!_ ” Richie rolled onto his back, knocking his head on the window when he squeezed his cramping calf in an out-of-practice stretch. Usually Eddie would have dashed to his side, pressing in that one spot then pulling in that one way that always made Richie’s aching body melt into calm. He wished he’d paid closer attention so he could help himself, but whenever Eddie played Dr. K, all Richie could focus on was the momentary touch of strong, confident hands on his calves. 

Eddie was always strong and confident even when he was terrified. _Especially_ when he was terrified. It infuriated Richie a little; nervous, hesitant Eddie had no right to have so assuredly slid beside him in bed every night or crawled onto his lap in a cheer uniform or give an incredible blowjob with absolutely zero prompting, and for what… just to try it, just to prove himself, just to see if he could?

Through a pained hiss, Richie straightened his leg with a kick to the door. It flung open, inviting a freezing chill from the snowy outside.

As quickly as the cold came, so did the cyclist. With a WHUMPF! and a shout, the rider collided with the open car door, hurled from his bike in a harmless tumble.

Richie bolted upright, whacking his head again on the car ceiling.

“Ow! Fuck,” he winced.

“What’re _you_ saying ‘ow fuck’ for?!” the cyclist shrieked from the sidewalk, clearly fine despite the bent up bicycle frame. “Come on, man! Asshole!”

Richie tried to climb out of the car to help the rambling man up, but when his cramp flared he tripped out instead, exposing his pantless winter getup. The cyclist was appalled, a string of belligerent curses signaling to Richie that he needed out of this situation, stat, before he was arrested, or worse - forced to pay bicycle damages.

“Apologies and cheerio, good sir!” Richie shouted in his best British-guy voice, hopping around the car on his good leg until he could roll across the hood and dive into the front seat with little grace. As soon as the engine sputtered to life he screeched away, pleased by the seamless, high-speed escape.

Or perhaps, not-so-seamless, as one glance in his rear view mirror revealed that he’d left the back door open and the fallen stack of boxes had scattered his clothes to the wintery wind.

  
  


Richie felt like a loser. He’d lost his best friend, lost his cellphone, lost his _pants_. 

Now all he had left to lose was his dignity, and he was pretty sure that got tossed out the window along with his socks. So, with feigned confidence, he strutted up to a payphone and prayed that any passing city folk would ignore his long, bare legs as he stood shivering in the wet snow.

With every _clink-clink-clink!_ of falling quarters, Richie’s heart rate spiked. Why was it so nerve-wracking to make one damn call to the person he knew would _always_ pick up? 

The ringing clicked and before anyone could answer, Richie blurted, “Hey, Stan?”

“...Richie?”

A swell of relief made him realize how tense he’d been and he sighed into the receiver, “Hey, man, yeah, sorry to call out of the blue—“

“What, you think this is out of the blue? You’ve been missing all night, Richie!” Stanley’s frown was audible. “Where _are_ you?”

“Sorry. I’m… out of town,” answered Richie, unwilling to fully disclose his location lest a search party of Ben and Mike be sent for him.

“‘Out of town?’ You mean out of your mind?” said Stan. “Everyone’s worried sick about you, the amount of calls I’ve gotten… Everyone thought you might be coming up here. Why didn’t you call Eddie or Mike sooner? Do you even care, Richie?”

“Aw, Stan… you were waiting for me?”

“Shut up, and call the others.” 

There was the familiar shuffling sound of Stanley about to hang up, and Richie desperately clutched the payphone cord as if it was a hand he could grab to stop Stan from leaving. He exclaimed, more desperately than intended, “Wait, Stan! Don’t go—“

“I’m not leaving, I’m just switching shoulders. Now what is it?” 

“Oh. Um… I…I threw my phone into the quarry,” Richie blinked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Into the—?! What? Isn’t that a little dramatic?” 

“Well, sue me for being heartbroken!”

“I would, except to afford the lawyers you’d come begging _me_ for money and that all feels a bit roundabout.” There was a smile edging alongside Stan’s sarcasm, and Richie couldn’t help but laugh. “What happened, Richie? ‘Heartbroken’? Eddie called looking for you, he said you fought. He also seems to think he can text me at 2AM and get a response, so I would much appreciate it if you could get a hold of him on your payphone instead? Maybe let him know you _haven’t_ given up on everything you guys have made together?”

Richie toyed with the metal cord, struggling to reject his flaring fight-or-flight response as they broached the topic of Eddie.

“...Whatever, he thinks it’s gonna fail anyway. He said it to my face.”

“I wasn’t talking about your movie, Richie.”

“There’s nothing else to talk about,” Richie grumbled, quickly moving past the fact that there most definitely was. “I don’t know, man, this movie was our _thing_ and we only did it to stick together, but I’m stupid… stupid idea, stupid dream, just everything is so—!! ...I’m sorry, Stan... I wasted all of your money.”

“You _are_ stupid. You know, for how much you talk, Trashmouth, you don’t actually tell us very much,” Stan sighed. “Mike informed me that this was all because you were going to be evicted. _Mike_ had to tell me. He doesn’t even live with you. Why didn’t you just ask for help with your rent?”

“I wanted to make something! Y’know, be productive, contribute to society—“

“Yes, anal sex is such a noble path.”

“—but all I made is trouble. As usual,” Richie slumped against the payphone, giving into his melancholy. His heart ached; everything sucked and he couldn’t even muster the energy to tease Stanley for saying the word ‘anal.’ 

“That’s true. You made trouble, as usual. And look, everybody showed up for it.”

“...You included,” said Richie, smiling a little.

“Me included,” said Stan, “for some reason. So it can’t be that bad. Anyway, how long have you and Eddie lived together, now? Going on a decade? It shouldn’t have taken you this long to notice how much he likes being swept into your messes.”

This affirmation worsened Richie’s resounding heartache, forcing him to confront how cowardly it was to abandon everything he cared about. Eddie always followed Richie, always had his back, he was always there; couldn’t Richie manage the same? “I just… wanted him to stay with me, Stan.”

“Oh I see! So you ran away.” The sarcasm was biting.

“Yeah, okay, fine, I had to get out of there! But he’s the one who—!” Richie uselessly tried to retort. Stan was right, but he also didn’t understand the depths of Richie’s struggle. “Look, I fucked up, okay? I can’t take it, I dared to want too much, and Eddie just _doesn’t_ want… the same things I do.”

“You sure? He said that to you?” When no answer came, Stanley added, “When I talked to him, he just said he wanted to know the truth.”

“...I’m terrified, Stan.”

“Well, be brave instead. And don’t stop making films. Your movie was… good.”

“What?”

“Mike e-mailed me the file. It’s pretty good. Romantic even, somehow.”

“ _You_ actually watched my _porno?!_ ” Richie exclaimed, the glances from streetside passersby unnoticed in his delight. 

“Ending could use some work, though.”

“Hey well, we hired a writer so that one’s not on me,” Richie grinned.

“I think it is,” Stan said. 

And he hung up.

\--------------

Eddie’s bedroom light punctured the snowy darkness of their street, inviting like a light at the end of a tunnel and just as foreboding. Richie had been sitting in the car for a good hour now, palms sweaty from urging himself to go inside, already.

It had taken the entire afternoon to drive back to Derry after making multiple stops for internal debates, one including a solid anxiety wretch on the side of the road. But for every gas-station pull-over, he remembered Stan’s words, swallowed his fear, and got back in the car.

“You’re only here to pick up some pants,” he reassured himself as he stiffly stalked to the door, bare legs prickling from the cold. “That’s it. You just wanna get some clothes, say sorry, explain yourself honestly, and you’ll leave if he wants. With a proper goodbye.” 

A tugging dread urged him to turn heel - so he slammed his palm against the door buzzer before he could convince himself to do otherwise. He half-expected to see Eddie at the upstairs bedroom window, looking back. But there was no movement and no answer despite another ring.

Anxiously, Richie dug in the planter for the spare key. The prospect of total failure was creeping on him, and he needed to get into the apartment _now_ before he hightailed out of Derry a second time. Snow obscured the planter’s dirt and he winced as he shoved an arm into the wet pile, feeling for metal and finding none. 

“Shit... stupid place to hide a key in winter,” he muttered, shaking the cold from his now-damp jacket sleeve.

When hunting for a spare rock to chuck at the window turned up nothing, he dared to shout Eddie’s name. His voice warbled, and he felt too embarrassed to keep yelling and go ignored.

He wanted to leave. It would be so much easier than laying himself out before Eddie and saying everything he never, and always, wanted to say. But for all the times that Eddie had been there, Richie knew he couldn’t abandon him now.

“Okay, Stanley,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll try. Eddie’s window never fucking closes anyway.” 

So he gripped the rickety old drain pipe that ran up the side of the apartment and leapt, icy metal scorching his naked legs as he used all his strength to shimmy upwards, higher and higher towards the drafty window until he could stretch a leg to the apartment’s overhang. He managed to scrape a boot onto the shingles, then short-circuited on the next step. Maybe a hand on the windowsill? No, it was still too high. Was there a dislodged brick somewhere that he could grab? Maybe he could drop his leg and try pivoting?

Precariously stretched between the pipe and the overhang, Richie’s muscles trembled. The morning bicycle rides couldn’t possibly have prepared him for this - he was so out of shape. In desperation he swung his other leg up, which did little more than make his weakening arms give, and he dropped down into a dirty old bush with a painful thud.

“ _Shit!_ ” he winced, sore and sufficiently covered in mud and sticks and damp from snow. “ _Great_.”

Peering up at the second floor, he calculated that if there was just one handhold between the window and the drainpipe, he could cover the distance to rest his feet on the narrow first-floor overhang, giving him enough leverage to reach Eddie’s window. The winter-worn tree branches that lay scattered along the road couldn’t possibly support his weight. No, if only he had something grippable, sturdy, something fortified…

It dawned on him then. Richie raced to the car.

Hurling open the trunk, he tossed aside his boxes until he uncovered the old, immortalized spatula they always kept for scraping ice on brisk winter days. Balancing it in his palms with the gentleness of an archaeologist holding an ancient idol, Richie murmured in disbelief, “Life… finds a way.”

With a newfound burst of spirit he again scaled the drain pipe, spatula clenched between his teeth. Grateful for their crumbling old apartment building, he found a rotting crevice of mortar and deeply lodged the spatula until it felt sturdy.

“Okay,” he steadied himself nervously. Hugging the pipe tightly with one hand and the spatula with the other, Richie remembered the freedom of leaping off the quarry ledge and vaulted. In the same moment that his boots scraped against brick overhang, he released from the spatula-hold, flinging his arms to clutch the base of Eddie’s windowsill. The cooking utensil tumbled from its hold, plopping into the powder below.

“Oh, wow! Oh shit!” Richie gasped, awed by his action-hero finesse as he clung dangerously to the building, all four limbs spread like a spider.

Eddie’s old window was, luckily, still broken. Giving himself no time to look down he performed his final lunge, praying to any abs he might have to land him on the upper ledge. Scrambling against the broken window, Richie hefted it open in the same motion that he leveraged a dive inside, collapsing against the floor in a sopping puddle of dirty snow. 

He had made it. He was in. He was going to make things right. Sparing no time in jumping to his feet, adrenaline fueled his announcement.

“Eddie! I’m sorry!”

“... R-Richie!?” blinked Bill.

They stared at each other. 

Bill was reclined alone on one side of Eddie’s bed, fisting the sheets in alarm from the sudden intrusion. The blankets dropped when he sat up and it became clear that he was very nearly nude, wearing little more than a pair of boxers. Between Bill’s messy hair, bare legs, and the distant sound of the shower running down the hall, it didn’t take long for Richie to piece together why no one had answered the door in the last ten minutes. His heart flared.

“You… absolute bitch!” Richie cried, pouncing onto the bed. 

Bill shouted out, grappling back as they wrestled pathetically on the soft mattress. They rolled onto the floor, uselessly scuffling like angry siblings until Bill managed to knock a knee into Richie’s stomach and slip out of his hold.

“W-w-what are you _d-doing_ here?” Bill panted, scurrying around the bed to put some distance between them. He glanced down. “And…w-where are your pants!?”

“I could ask you the same thing! This is fucking treachery!” Richie pulled himself up by the tangled sheets, head pounding. He lunged across the bed but the smaller man dashed to the other side of the room and Richie could only flop against the mattress, catching his breath. “What the hell? Why are you in Eddie’s room?”

Bill held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Look, it’s not what you think.”

“It’s fucking _fine_ , Bill, you have every right!” Richie caught himself shouting and deflated suddenly, sinking into the bed. He closed his eyes, quieting. “Eddie has every right. I just... didn’t expect to see you. If I’m being realistic I probably _should have_ expected this. He wanted to fuck around, and he can, and I need to get over myself and my big delusional dreams of making a romcom comeback or whatever.”

The mattress shifted and Richie opened an eye to find Bill sitting beside him, looking rueful. 

“It _really_ isn’t what you think, Rich. Can I have a turn, now?” he asked firmly. “When you left the other night, Eddie was totally frazzled. He was certain you’d come back, but honestly I wasn’t so sure. So I offered to move in with him - just for a little while, in case you were serious about bailing. It’s almost the end of the month, and it’s not like he exactly has the money to stay afloat alone.”

Richie found himself reaching for Bill’s hand. There was something relieving about knowing that Eddie always had people looking out for him.

“Thanks, man. Seriously.”

“I accept your apology,” Bill roughly patted Richie’s stomach where he’d landed the hit, and Richie cringed. That was definitely going to be a bruise. “That was for waking me up when I was trying to nap.”

“Okay, _sorry_ , god,” he huffed, sitting up. 

“And for full clarity, since your skull is so damn thick - Eddie and I did not sleep together.”

Richie rubbed the back of his neck, fully embarrassed that he’d panicked. How had he gotten away this long without anyone ever figuring him out when he behaved like _that_ ? “So… then why _are_ you in Eddie’s room?”

“He wanted yours.”

Richie felt his head go static and he blankly replied, “What?”

“He wanted to sleep in your room.”

A tiny flame of hope ignited in Richie’s heart, and in the next moment he was on his feet and racing down the hallway.

\--------------

The hot water that prickled Eddie’s skin was a welcome embrace from cold weather and the even colder depression that plagued him. He’d been fluctuating between anger and panic but after getting a call from Stan that morning, he’d settled right into sorrow. Richie was gone, driven hours out of town and, no matter how much Eddie wished for it, he wasn’t going to come back.

When a raucous knock jolted him from his daydreams, Eddie turned off the shower and called, “Gimme a minute, Bill. I’ll be out in a second!”

“...It’s um. It’s me,” came the urgent voice, muffled through the door.

Eddie’s stomach flopped so hard he thought he might double over. The panic was most definitely back. 

“Go away!” Eddie snapped. 

And there was the anger.

“I came to talk, Eds. Can you get dressed and come out?”

“No! Don’t call me that, it’s not my name!” Eddie yelled. “Just because you come back doesn’t mean you’re some kind of hero! You fucking walked out on me! And you stole my car!”

“I didn’t-- what! I didn’t steal it!” The sheepishness in Richie’s tone flipped quickly to boisterous retort.

“Then where has it been, asshole?”

“It’s in the driveway! I brought it back!!”

“So!? You still took it! The car is legally licensed to _me_ , it is under _my_ name and _you_ took it; that is the definition of theft, Richie! Can you imagine if you’d gotten pulled over then the registration would be documented with _my_ information and--” 

“Ugh, enough! I can’t talk to you like this! I’m coming in!”

Eddie froze as lingering steam drifted past him from the opening door. He could sense Richie on the other side of the shower curtain, filling the tiny bathroom with his big frame. The room felt even smaller, suddenly, and Eddie shrunk back. 

“I’m not looking, I just… I can’t hear you right out there,” Richie said. “Did you say that car is in your name? Because I’m pretty sure it’s in mine, like remember when Bev pulled it out of impound she used some lie about being my cousin or something--”

“ _Richie!_ ” Eddie said, aghast. 

“Right, fuck, not important, sorry, okay gimme a sec,” muttered Richie. “Look, I won’t stay long, all right? You don’t have to listen to me anymore after this, but hear me out. I’m sorry I dipped like that, I’m an idiot and it was stupid. I’m sorry I stole the car. Might be yours or mine but either way I just had to go, man. It wasn’t right to do, but fighting with you back there, it-- it was… god, I don’t know how to tell you this. It scared the shit out of me, Eddie.” 

Richie seemed to hit a roadblock and he fumbled his words, stammering awkwardly in hesitation. Eddie could only listen, heart hammering and eyes wide.

“Everything I said,” he went on, as soft as Eddie had ever heard Richie Tozier say anything, “In the car. Everything I said, I meant. Not the shit about wanting space, not really, it- it doesn’t really make sense but I only said that because I _want_ , all the time, to... be close to you. Doing the porno, doing our scene, then seeing you all the time and not being able to have you, like _really_ have you … it fucking sucked, Eddie, I couldn’t take it anymore. There was nothing I could say without saying _too much_ , I wanted to tell you everything - about Ben, about Bill, about me - but it’s all just so intertwined with how I feel about you that I couldn’t get it out. I should have, and I’m sorry. I’m not joking, I wasn’t joking... I _am_ in love with you, Eddie.”

For all the self-inflicted asthma attacks, Eddie had never known breathlessness like this. It bloomed in his chest and wrapped up all his longing and sorrow and happiness and spread them through from chest to fingertips, stealing his words as it went.

Audibly panicking from the lack of reaction, Richie faltered, “A-and it’s fine that you’re not interested, I’m not expecting anything, I can get over it. You’re my best friend and I don’t want to lose you. If you want, after all this bullshit, I’ll pack up and get out of your hair and we’ll be friends. But,” he paused thoughtfully, adding with a small confidence, “if you felt what I felt when we did our scene together - and I really think you did because I’ve _never_ had anyone kiss me like that - then… please, tell me.”

“What did you feel?” Eddie asked, forcing his voice above a whisper.

Richie must have been holding his breath, because he exhaled roughly. “Um. Loved, I guess. I felt like we made love.”

Heart pounding, Eddie carefully withdrew the curtain enough to poke his head out.

After years of Richie bursting into the bathroom while it was already occupied, this was probably the first time he’d ever seen the broad-shouldered man having entered facing away. He looked small, hunched as closely to the closed door as possible. And he was… covered in twigs? And soaking wet? And dressed in nothing but a muddy coat and underwear?

Fully confused, Eddie blurted, “Where are your pants?”

“I--” Richie startled and looked down at himself, then spun to face Eddie.

It was flooring to see him in person again; two days had felt like years, and Eddie would have been awed by the beauty of Richie’s worried, wide-eyed expression if he wasn’t so distracted by the explanation. 

“I, uh, lost them.”

“You… lost them?” repeated Eddie. “How-- how do you lose a pair of pants that were on your body? Were you just walking around the city and they fell off? Did you get mugged? Wait, oh my god, _did_ you get mugged!? What the fuck happened to you? Holy shit, dude—”

“No, Eddie, I— !” Richie tried to calm him down, overcome suddenly by laughter. He melted into a fit, pulling his muddy jacket and twig-covered hat off to the bathroom floor. “I had the worst damn day without you!”

He hadn’t thought he could feel any lighter, but when Richie laughed, Eddie’s heart soared and they fell into step. Their relieved giggling coalesced until Richie reached for a towel and extended it to Eddie with the shyness of someone who just remembered he was in a bathroom with a naked man. “Come on, dry off or you’ll catch a cold. And then we can talk outside.”

He turned away again, modest. Richie had said he was scared - and he looked it - but he was _here_. Eddie wasn’t about to let him leave again. And if he wanted Richie to stay then he would have to try, one more time, to be bold.

Dripping water tracked a puddle as Eddie stepped from the shower, stopping only when his chest bumped gently against the hand that held out the towel. Richie stiffened, meeting Eddie’s acute stare over his shoulder. He insistently pushed the cloth closer to Eddie, but Eddie didn’t take it.

“Richie,” he said. “Coming back and telling me you love me doesn’t instantly fix all of our problems.”

“I know. I know it doesn’t. It makes more,” Richie frowned, face red and eyes averted. “Can you please just take the damn towel?”

Eddie took his hand instead. 

He tugged Richie back, burying his face in that broad chest with a lovelorn sigh. In the days they were apart, Eddie had missed Richie’s distinct musk so much that he’d sought it in the abandoned bedroom as if it was a comfortable hug. Except now he was real and Eddie could squeeze him tight and draw the strength to say what he needed to say, too.

Floundering, Richie avoided hugging back properly. Instead, he settled by wrapping the towel around Eddie’s wet body, hands gingerly rested on his back. The terry cloth warmed him, and Eddie chuckled; Richie was always taking care of him, never how he thought he wanted and always how he needed.

“But you did come back, so we can fix things together. I don’t want to lose you either,” said Eddie, bold and safe in Richie’s arms, “And I want to start with something you said, because I keep thinking about how wrong you got it. I didn’t know how to say it before, but I wasn’t trying to prove anything with that blowjob. I know I’d been weird so I can see where you got that idea, but I did it because I… _really_ wanted to. Everything we did, ever since we started the movie, it like... unlocked something in me, I felt like I could do anything, and I wanted to do it over and over.”

“Eddie, I- I’m really happy to hear that. I am. But I’ve spent my whole life figuring all this gay shit out and as enticing as it sounds, I can’t…” he deflated, a hitch to his breath as he choked, “I can’t be your sexual experiment.”

“Is that what you think!?” Eddie finally pulled away from Richie, frowning. “No! You felt what you felt because, yeah - I felt it too!”

“What?” Richie looked lost.

“How dense are you? I want _you._ I don’t want to just mess around, obviously!”

“‘ _Obviously?_ ’”

“Yeah?!” Eddie threw up his arms. “Was it unclear when I cornered you dressed up like a cheerleader?”

“Yes! Very unclear!” Richie countered, his voice pitched with what sounded like nervous terror. 

“Come _on_ , Rich!”

“You’ve never done anything like that before, how was I supposed to know what to think?” 

“That’s my point! I’ve done so many things I never thought I could do, _would_ do! I feel good, Richie, and I want to do more, I want to be more,” Eddie exclaimed. “With you, just you! And I’m pissed at you for keeping secrets and running off… but after Bill told me everything about how you guys met, I get it. You were scared of yourself, and me, and I’m no better. I could put on a skirt but I couldn’t open my damn mouth and tell you that - yes, you and I made love. It’s been there all along and I refused to look at it because I’m a coward, because it seemed so impossible that someone like you would ever… think of someone like me… ”

Richie looked dizzy during the confession, then furrowed his brow, “Wha-- what do you mean, ‘someone like you?’ That’s stupid.” 

“What? Shut up! Like you can talk!” Eddie tightened his towel around his waist and gently pushed against Richie’s chest, finally separating them. But Richie held fast to Eddie’s hand, pressing it flush against his heart.

“Eddie, you’re perfect,” said Richie, unfaltering. “Earlier this random guy yelled at me and all it did was make me miss being yelled at by _you_. Because you stand up to people even though you’re so freaking little, and you’re mean and passionate and you’re always there for anybody who needs it. You’re the bravest person I know.” He stepped closer to Eddie, who tripped back from the sheer gravitas of the swagger. Richie leaned close to him, scoffing, “‘Someone like you.’ Yeah, right. There’s nobody like you.”

It was aching, the way Richie’s words filled the scars etched so deeply in Eddie’s heart, affirming something he never knew he’d been waiting to hear.

“I’m not little, I’m only like three inches shorter than you. That’s like, average,” he grumbled.

“I love you, Eddie,” Richie’s laugh was soft and cool against Eddie’s wet hair. 

“I think I’ve always loved you, Richie.”

And when Richie closed his eyes, relishing the words, Eddie took his face and kissed him. This is what Eddie had been missing and craving, and from the way Richie’s hands ran along his neck, he had too. They stumbled back against the sink, melting into each other with such crazed longing that they clumsily knocked the sinkside toothbrushes to the ground. 

“And it’s four inches shorter,” Richie’s lips bumped against Eddie’s, earning him a gentle smack to his cheek.

“What, your dick?”

“Ha! Can’t pull that one on me, you’ve seen it!”

“Would like to see it again,” Eddie said, lifting his eyes. He could feel the pounding of their chests pressed together, and warmed with the satisfaction that he somehow had attained everything he’d ever wanted.

“Wow, god, okay, yes. Hell yes,” Richie stammered. Clearly overwhelmed, he turned to jokes, articulating in his best alien voice, “ _Take. Me. To. Your. Room!_ Or, well, my room, I guess? Your room now. Actually, we still haven’t gone over if I’m getting kicked out, or…”

“Oh my god, and you think _I’m_ annoying. No, Rich! You’re not going anywhere!”

“All right… bad news about Bill, then… he and I might have to share a bed, this is a two bedroom one bath after all….”

Eddie snorted back a laugh. “Can you shut up and kiss me?”

“You know I’m just teasing you because I’m, like, insanely nervous, right?” Richie said softly, kissing Eddie’s cheek and brushing aside his damp hair. He had done this very thing during their scene, and back then Eddie had wondered why it felt so loving. This time, he had nothing to wonder about.

“You are?” he asked, disbelieving that Richie, who did everything with gusto, could possibly be nervous. “Why? We’ve had sex once before, just that time it was scripted.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he murmured. “There’s so much more I wanted - _want_ \- to do to you, Eds.”

Eddie walked him backwards until Richie’s ankles hit the toilet edge and he was forced to sit, dragging his hands down Eddie’s sides, awed. 

“You can do it here. And so there’s no misunderstandings this time,” Eddie said, shivering from the lingering goosebumps that trailed after Richie’s warm hands, “Then maybe you can tell me about it.”

Richie laughed. “Right. Dirty-talk, huh? Okay, Boss… I want you in my mouth, it’s not enough to just have you in my hands.” He planted a few kisses along Eddie’s abdomen, glanced up and asked, “How’s that?”

“Pretty clear,” Eddie huffed, ears glaringly hot from something so basic. God, he was a mess. “W-would’ve thought you’d blabber a little more. I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“Hey, look, I’m getting warmed up, all right? I told you, I’m… you really make my head spin,” Richie wiggled his fingers around his temples. “I can’t just throw you down and call you cumslut with the drop of a hat! This is weeks - _years_ \- of buildup! I’m processing! _You_ try suddenly seducing the hot roommate you’ve been yearning after!”

“I _am_ trying, idiot.”

Richie snapped his mouth shut with a pleased little smile. “Unreal…”

He pressed his lips down Eddie’s stomach, sighing against it like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. It was Eddie’s turn to grow dizzy, cheeks flushed as the pecks gave way to nips of teeth. Today had gone nothing like what he’d expected, and he was fully unprepared for how to handle having Richie in the apartment, Richie in his underwear, Richie in love. He wasn’t used to being so caught off-guard: there was no roadmap for a moment like now. There wasn’t a prescription to follow, a list to check off, no script to guide him and ease the typical whirlpool of thoughts, churning and tumbling over one another until all he could do was panic. No, there was only Richie, touching and kissing him with restrained excitement.

And as Richie’s trembling hands teased beneath the towel, brushing up against the curve of his upper thigh, he felt the restraint on his own excitement beginning to crumble. 

Clumsily grabbing an alarmed Richie by the sides of his face, Eddie demanded, “Richie, if you don’t - if you don’t suck my dick _right now_ , I swear to god--” 

Richie groaned, cutting Eddie off when he briskly threw the towel aside, exposing damp thighs. He only spent a moment gazing upon Eddie’s half-hard cock before pressing his nose gently against the nook of his hip bone and sighing, “Sorry Eds. I won’t make you wait anymore.”

Richie gave his ass an experimental squeeze and kissed against the base of his cock so gently and teasingly that Eddie found himself grabbing Richie’s hair, impatiently urging him closer.

Grinning, Richie wasted no more time and took the tip into his lips, tonguing against Eddie until he was deep and rigid in his mouth.

It was very hot and very much, and Eddie clung to Richie’s shoulders as he choked out a moan. Big hands traveled everywhere, feeling up his legs, scratching against his sides, squeezing along his chest. Eddie had never dared to touch his own nipples but Richie took no hesitation in running firm thumbs over the sensitive skin, still wet from the shower, with a gentle pinch. Eddie’s knees buckled from the electric bloom of arousal, and he gasped so embarrassingly loud that Richie smiled around his cock with a smugness that would have been infuriating, were Eddie not melted on the spot by the way he was being swallowed.

Richie was one-hundred percent showing off.

He pulled from Eddie with a wet pop, chasing the taste with a salacious lick of his lips as he tugged the huffing man into his lap. Too weak from pleasure, Eddie could only lean into the pressure of Richie’s clothed bulge grinding up against his bare ass.

“Mmn, god,” Richie muttered lowly, taking Eddie’s dick into his hand and showering his nipples with a torrent of affectionate licks and kisses. “Eddie, you make me so crazy. Your chest makes me crazy. Your legs, your cock, everything, _fuck_.”

“Shut up, stop, I’m not anything--” Eddie panted, amazed that he could manage to feel embarrassed despite their intimacy.

“You’re everything,” said Richie, just as slowly and intentionally as the way he slid his fingers along Eddie’s erection. With every word he picked up the pace of both hands and hips, leaning Eddie back like a dancer being dipped. “You have no idea how much I’ve dreamed of making a mess out of you. Take you apart like this, listen to you lose your mind, tell you how fucking _good_ you taste.”

Head-spinningly hot, Eddie decided that Richie was too powerful when he talked, so he did the first thing that popped into his head and pressed a forefinger against those swollen lips. Incredibly, Richie wrapped his mouth around the fingers, knuckle-deep and sucking with the same fervor he’d had for Eddie’s hard-on. 

“Ohh, Richie,” Eddie groaned, wondering if the hot waves that pulsed through him would ever let up. He kissed messily beside Richie’s busy mouth as he worked fingers against tongue in time with the pace he was being jacked off. “Richie….”

Richie suddenly withdrew, instead decorating his wrist with loving kisses. 

“Again,” he begged.

“ _Richie_ ,” Eddie whispered, and brought their lips together.

Richie started to stand then; they stumbled off the toilet and against the wall, devolving into bruising kisses that had Eddie so frantic he had to grab onto the shower curtain for support. He threw it back swiftly, breathlessly commanding, “Get in the shower.” Barely giving Richie time to fully react before walking him into it, Eddie pawed at the shower and twisted the faucet on.

Still hot from being used only moments before, the water drenched them in seconds and shrouded the room in steam. Richie hadn’t let up kissing, but he had, annoyingly, begun laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing! But if you wanted to see me in a wet t-shirt you only gotta ask. I think I could be a Hooters girl, right?” he posed impressively, rivulets of water trickling over the curves of his shoulders and chest. His briefs clung to him, outlining his arousal so pornographically that Eddie actually thought he should have grabbed a camera. It was, admittedly, unbearably hot - however, Eddie wasn’t about to let him know that.

“You were covered in muck! You’re disgusting,” Eddie argued, ears going red. He grabbed the bottom of Richie’s soaked shirt and tried to tug it over his head, but the wet fabric caught and very soon they were both struggling to free him.

“No, you’re right. I just love your quick thinking. I love you,” Richie said from inside his shirt. “Arguable effectiveness but, y’know. Live and let learn.”

Eddie finally pulled off the garment, flinging it furiously out of the shower. Richie escaped his underwear in the same moment, seductively stretching them out for Eddie to look at, only to have those snatched and flung away too.

“I love you too,” Eddie said. The declaration poured from him so naturally, and he wanted to say it again and again - that and so much more. Inspired by the freedom to voice his feelings, he briskly slid out of the shower and started clattering around in the medicine drawer, uncovering two bottles of lube. 

Richie smirked. “Hey! Those lil’ guys. You know if you mix those two together, they taste exactly like donuts? Totally bonkers.”

Brow furrowed, Eddie returned with a decisive nod. “I want to finger you.”

“Wh-what? You wanna…?” Richie was so surprised he didn’t even notice when Eddie curiously gave the mix a quick taste test, considering the flavor with an agreeable nod. “But it’s… I mean, yeah absolutely, if you really--”

He should have been keeping track of how many times he’d stumped Richie in the last week; this was a record-level high for the rarity of catching Trashmouth with nothing to say, and it only motivated Eddie to reach around Richie and slip a finger between his ass with a clumsy flourish.

“Hoh! Okay!” Richie buckled, resting his forearm against the shower wall and his forehead on Eddie’s shoulder. “Jesus, wow, yes.”

“I really want to. I was so fucking haunted after our interview,” Eddie murmured, enthralled by Richie’s shaky panting as he teased his entrance. “Wondering if you liked doing this to yourself.”

“That damn interview,” Richie gasp-laughed, finally pulling off his uselessly fogged glasses and abandoning them to the soap tray. “You’re such an unnecessary asshole.”

“I’m thorough,” Eddie corrected. 

With a choked groan, Richie fisted Eddie’s hair and arched into his touch, visibly melting when Eddie cautiously pushed inside. There was a strained string of curses, and then Richie was grinding his hips against Eddie’s thigh and thrusting back against his hand.

It was stunning how quickly he was gone, so slack-jawed and deliriously stilted in his rutting that Eddie almost couldn’t believe he could have this kind of power over anyone. The way Richie buried his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck couldn’t mask the warbled request of, “Another--” which Eddie obliged, hungry to feel more of how hot and pliant Richie was around his knuckles.

It was clear Richie was trying to hold back his moans, but it seemed to fail as he took his neglected cock in hand and started working himself.

 _What a sight_ , Eddie thought, as Richie, with his dark lidded eyes and pink cheeks, blearily lifted his head.  
“ _Eddie, Eds_ \--” his voice pitched with each thrust of fingers. A thrill danced up Eddie’s spine - he loved his name when Richie said it like that, mounting in desire and desperation.

“Richie… ” sighed Eddie, slipping his free hand over Richie’s and relentlessly guiding the faltering rhythm as his lover tensed against him with a shaky, choked-back groan. 

Eddie felt the heat spatter against his hand and stomach before he saw it - but Richie too quickly gathered up Eddie’s face in his hands and kissed him again and again and again until his panting dissolved into broken giggles and they were collapsed together against the cool wall of the shower.

“Christ, you’re so hot,” Richie exhaled, leaning back. His dripping hair was plastered over his forehead, cheeks flushed hard and a ridiculous grin broad across his face. Eddie was beet-red, completely awe-struck by the sight. Richie Tozier really was beautiful.

“Wanna know what it feels like?” asked Richie, so husky and low that Eddie, who thought he was already impossibly hard, twitched at the sound.

“Yeah,” Eddie swallowed as Richie, like a literal wet dream, kneeled before him. He licked along his aching erection with such firmness that Eddie had to rely on the shower wall to keep him steady. It was his turn to stifle a moan, trying to clutch Richie’s shaggy locks in a desperate attempt to maintain some kind of control.

“I’m gonna make you cum, Kaspbrak,” Richie promised, and proceeded to show off, again, with just how useful his mouth could be. 

The oath didn’t take long to fulfill; Eddie was wound so tight that when Richie swirled his tongue just so and danced long fingers teasingly between his legs, Eddie lost all hope of holding on and hitched his hips, spilling into Richie’s throat. 

He tried to withdraw, to stutter a warning, anything to make it easier - but Richie held tight and drew Eddie’s climax out in deep, slow pulls. Eddie frantically tried to apologize, but all Richie did was swallow obscenely.

Certain he might pass out from joyful, lightheaded exhaustion, Eddie slid to the shower floor, spreading his legs out around the kneeling Richie. They crumpled together, wet limbs entangled in a comfortable embrace.

“Okay, so maybe next time,” Richie teased, politely washing his mouth out with water before giving Eddie a chaste peck on the nose.

Eddie laughed, and switched the shower handle.

“I need to fucking dry off, and you need some clothes.”

  
  


The only pants in Eddie’s closet (or, Richie’s closet, re-assigned) that fit the taller man were a pair of black joggers. Richie tried to complain that they came up too high on his ankles, but when Eddie noted it was kind of sexy in, like, a Victorian kind of way, Richie had nothing more to say and delightedly kept them on. Eddie was simply delighted that he was free to call Richie sexy.

Already dressed and seated on the bed, Eddie flipped open his phone.

“Bev’s leaving after tomorrow. Wanna meet for a drink at the pub? We can celebrate the New Year early, together. Ben and Mike and Bill will be there, too,” he said, reading through his texts.

Shame seemed to creep up on Richie and he blushed, tugging one of Eddie’s oversized sweaters out of the bureau. “I… yeah. Yeah, sure, let’s go. I gotta apologize for bailing and worrying everybody.”

Eddie toyed with the edge of his shirt. He felt like their barriers had finally come down; everything made sense, and now that he had so little to worry about he felt like he could express how worrisome it _had_ been. “You know we scoured town for you… everywhere. We checked the school, downtown, even the barrens at night. Ben was gonna cancel his tickets home if you didn’t turn up fast, and Bill was so freaked out he ran into a parked car like, twice. I mean I’m glad you called Stan in the morning, but you seriously can _not_ do this shit to me again, okay?” 

“I know, I’m so sorry, Eddie. I’m supposed to be the one that’s there for you when you panic, not be the cause of it.” He kneeled before the bed, weaving his fingers between Eddie’s and looking him dead in the eye. “I’d never leave you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Eddie ruffled Richie’s drying hair, lightening. “Not so sure about that, Director. If our movie takes off, we could be going places.”

“I thought you said it would flop,” Richie quirked a brow.

“Okay, listen, in complete honesty the movie is statistically set up for failure - I mean, given the narrow demographic, the _actual_ potential interest of classmates on our mailing list, the breadth - or lack thereof - of our social outreach, we don’t really stand much of a chance,” Eddie started pacing the room, cutting the air with each factoid. 

“And you couldn’t have said this maybe, I dunno, _before_ we started filming?” Richie laughed, taking no offense.

“Well, look, that’s what the data says,” he spun to face him. “But I don’t really care about statistics! Like at all, actually! I care about _you_ , and _I_ like your ideas and I think other people will too. So, you know, we’ll just have to… to do what feels right, and… we’ll see what happens next.”

A huge grin painted Richie’s face and he approached Eddie, sliding his arms around his waist in a soft hug. It was warm and plush from the thick sweater and Eddie sunk into it, comforted. 

“Doesn’t it freak you out to admit you don’t know what’s going to happen?” Richie asked, maybe a little to himself.

“It’s not so bad. I didn’t know you and I could ever end up here, like this, but….”

Richie chuckled, pressing a soft kiss to Eddie’s cheek. “But we _should_ be at the bar. Come on.” 

So they pulled their warm hats and cozy scarves from the living room coat rack, Eddie zipping up Richie’s coat and Richie tying up Eddie’s bootlaces with a knightly, worshipping bow. It was all so new and yet all so much the same, and that was exactly how Eddie liked it.

They were halfway down the snowy street, hands intertwined and stuffed deep in Eddie’s jacket pocket when they heard Bill shouting after them. Spinning, the pair watched as he dashed from the apartment, red-cheeked and out of breath by the time he caught up.

Saving a flailing Eddie the embarrassment from having fully forgotten about Bill in the apartment all along, Richie burst into laughter and swung an arm around each of them, jovially steering the group towards the bar to meet their friends. 

\--------------

Spring came and went, and so did Richie and Eddie’s bills. _Summa Cum Lads_ wasn’t the striking hit they’d been banking on, but between Beverly’s blogging and a surprising outpouring of hits from their old classmates, they managed to pay off their pressing debts, dust off their savings account, and actually enjoy a drink on the weekends. It hadn’t been anything to quit their jobs for, but when Eddie graduated he decided to put his degree towards perfecting their porno-production pipeline (borrowing just one more loan from Stan), then he and Richie fell into an explosive creative groove.

By summer, they’d expanded their talent pool and produced two titles, _Dicks of Fire_ : _The Dickening_ and _2 Fast, 2 Cummy,_ which Eddie tirelessly promoted in-person by delivering DVDs and tapes to all the video stores in the county. Ben and Bev even had the bright idea to take a double-date roadtrip up north and distribute the films as they went. They spent a week sight-seeing, camping, and promoting the movies, ending with a big surprise sleepover at Stan’s house, which they were pretty sure he was actually thrilled about.

When autumn painted Derry red and Mike made his big move to the city for work at the state library, Richie and Eddie reshuffled their scheduling plans. Bill had been a permanent fixture of the production team as writer, but after agreeing to be Mike’s roommate to ease the transition, he finally left behind the adult erotica world for a job at the city paper. Before he departed, he left a script for the ambitious 80’s nostalgia flick _Blast to the Ass_ , with plans for its sequel, _Baby Got Back to the Future_ , which, by the end of winter, found such enthusiastic audiences that Eddie was certain they had enough of a consistent income to pay back their Stan loans and allow Richie to stretch beyond the adult industry.

And Richie stepped up to the challenge, working so tirelessly alongside Eddie that they barely noticed the year fly by and another winter settle quietly over the town.

  
  
  


A sleepy Richie lumbered into the kitchen, decked out in a clashing combination of open bowling shirt and patterned sweats. He gave the already-dressed Eddie little more than a tired grunt when he was greeted good morning. Popping some waffles lazily into the toaster, Richie yawned exaggeratedly.

“Caught you in the paper this morning,” Eddie said, munching on his own, more well-rounded breakfast with a wave of the newspaper from the dining table. Richie wrinkled his nose. “Don’t worry. Nothing about the fashion crimes you’ve committed. Listen: ‘...After failing to get his promising pitch, ‘ _Touchdown!: Do You Believe In Love?_ ’ off the ground as what could have been MTV’s first gay reality dating show, Tozier’s popular indie success has kicked off with the genre-defying raunchy-comedy-crime-thriller turned bromance-to-romance _The Bro Job_ , which is about as much of a box office flop as anyone would have expected. But its unhinged hilarity, excitingly earnest story and devoted cast has garnered enough attention to begin transforming it into something of a cult hit amongst both the average moviegoer and hard-earned cinephile …’ It goes on to say the public should ‘keep an eye on this promising director’ and ‘give _The Bro Job_ a chance, in spite of (or perhaps all the more due to) Tozier’s long roster of zany yet heartfelt adult flicks.’”

“Haha! They think they’re heartfelt,” Richie wiped a fake tear from his eye. “Did Bill write that?”

“No, this is a nationwide paper. And everything you do _is_ heartfelt, Richie,” Eddie corrected, peering at him over the news. “That’s why people like you.”

“Huh? I thought you liked me because I’m tall,” Richie slumped down across from him.

“I don’t like you at all,” Eddie replied, taking a big sip of coffee. “Hey, during your brief stint in the city a couple years back, did you see any neighborhoods that looked nice?”

“Why, looking to finally move out, roomie?” Richie reached across the table and snatched the newspaper, surveying it. Eddie tapped at the local listings on the side column. 

“Maybe. What do you think of Portland? Hear there’s some fine folks out there.”

Richie bumped his foot against Eddie’s ankle, grinning. “Think Mike would let us crash with him while we look for a place? Like old times?” 

“I think he’d be ecstatic.”

“Well you know I’ll go anywhere you want to, Eds. Or, let’s see… what’s that timeless quote… as our old friend Rory Gilmore would so succinctly say,” Richie began, singing, “‘ _Where you lead, I will follow! Anywhere that you want me to--_ ’”

“Aaagh! Stop! It’s gonna be stuck in my head all day!” Eddie jumped to his feet, shuffling out of the room and grabbing the paper on the way. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been putting off making moving plans for a solid ten years and I need to get started on some housing inquiries.”

But before he could dash out of the room Richie reached for his wrist, sliding his thumb against the warmth of Eddie’s skin. It would never stop giving him butterflies, and Eddie let himself be spun back into Richie’s arms.

“It’s not fair that you get to wear a sharp little suit even though you’ve been working from home,” Richie whined, toying with Eddie’s lapels.

Eddie shooed away the wandering hands. “I’m a business affairs agent now! If you want me to run this production company then I have to look the part, living room sofa or not. You could wear a suit too if you damn well pleased.”

“No, I mean it’s not fair for _me_.” He peppered kisses up Eddie’s neck, who barely croaked a laugh before he was sighing against the generous lips. “I can’t get enough of you, Eddie.”

The paper fell to the ground as Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie, forgetting his morning plans to enjoy the relentless affection. Guiding them dizzily down the hall, Eddie decided the calls could wait until afternoon. For everything he had to look forward to, there was only one thing he could ever be entirely certain of: it didn’t matter where they were or what they were having for breakfast, if Eddie could have mornings like this every day for the rest of his life, then he could be happy.

And as he took Richie’s hand, and Richie took his, he knew they would be.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it!  
> Thanks for all the comments/kudos/love on this and waiting for me to so slowly update, you guys are seriously amazing and all of your thoughts have been great. It’s been crazy to get your enthusiastic feedback!? And actually finish writing something!? So thank you again! It was fun to make, I hope you enjoyed this romcom lol!  
> Omg and shoutout to my love who came up with the best part: all the titles for Richie’s movies
> 
> Cheers~


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